Best Laid Plans
by Knackard
Summary: Sequel to Gone, in which Renesmee...does things, and Jake...does other things, and some other people...you know what? I'll put the summary inside, so I don't spoil Gone for anyone. Characters: WHO KNOWS? Pairings: COULD BE ANYONE.
1. The Letters That Comfort and Hurt

**Summary: Nary, raised by the Volturi but still connected to her past by half-forgotten memories, struggles to hide her growing fears about Aro. Demetri, watching the woman he loves retreat further and further into herself, is stalked by an unfamiliar sensation which feels suspiciously like doubt. Jake tries to be human again while he waits helplessly for word from his imprint.**

* * *

Jacob Black yawns into the spring morning, his breath swirling visibly through the crisp air. The sun is just beginning to rise, and by the time it is well and truly up, he hopes to have completed at least two laps around the rez. He'll head over to the Cullen mansion for breakfast and be back at Billy's—Dad's—_his_ house in time for the mail delivery. It's been two weeks since his last letter from Nessie. She's bound to send another soon.

An hour later, he is pulling up his shorts and striding up the path to the Cullens' front door. As always, it opens for him.

"Saw you coming," says Alice.

"Figured," says Jake.

"Come on," says Alice, "Esme's got a spread for you. And maybe you could try having table manners for once?"

"Belching is just another way of saying 'thank you'," says Jake. "Esme puts up a damn fine meal."

"Why, thank you, Jacob," says Esme from behind Alice. Alice darts away and Jake allows himself to be hugged tightly by Esme. He doesn't much like being so dependent on the Cullens for...well, everything. But Esme assures him constantly that he does her as much good as she does him.

Esme alone seems to understand how little Jake is suited for a normal, healthy life. For too long he was a werewolf with a dead imprint, accountable to no one, a stranger to happiness or ambition or even common kindness. She doesn't point out Jake's inhumanity to him, but she does sit with him while he eats the meals she prepares, and she talks about whatever it is he feels like talking about. When his hair needs cutting, she is ready with a pair of sharp scissors and careful hands. When his clothes wear out, she provides him with new ones. She gives him a hug to say hello, and she gives him a hug to say goodbye. Her skin may be as cold and as hard as ice, but her kindness is real. It isn't that he can't provide his own haircuts and clothes and food; he just needs to need someone. She tried to be there for him before, when he still believed Nessie dead, but he didn't want her mothering then. Well, he wants it now.

"I made you a breakfast quiche of smoked venison and goose eggs," she says, following him into the lofty dining-room. "A leg of lamb dressed with mint and thyme, sweet-potatoes hashed with ham, and fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice. There's bacon and pancakes, too, if you feel like being traditional."

"It looks perfect," says Jake, settling down to the quiche—which, incidentally, is the size of a deep-dish pizza. He'll eat all she prepared, and be back for a much bigger dinner later. "Thanks for...you know. Doing all this for me. And everything," he says. The words come out awkwardly, gratitude being a foreign language to him.

But Esme squeezes his hand and smiles. "I'm glad to do it," she says. "I love cooking, and besides you there's no one to cook for around here."

"Well," says Jake, "if not for you my dad would have gone broke months ago just trying to feed me. I wish there were some way for me to repay you..." But he can't. Not in money, anyway. Where in all the relentless exercising and rescue-mission planning is there room for a job?

"Nonsense," says Esme. "You're family, Jacob. You don't need to repay family. And anyway, you found her, alive and well. If anyone, it is _we_ who owe _you_."

"Yeah, well," grumbles Jake, "I sort of cocked that one up, didn't I?" It's not a question.

"Jacob," says Esme gently, looking considerately away from his troubled eyes. "It is enough that you share Nary's letters with the family. It is of inestimable comfort to us. We understand about the command, truly we do. We will figure out a solution to this, and until that happens, every word she pens is our inspiration and our hope." She pauses, and then goes on. "Has there been...?" she asks delicately.

"You know I'd tell you if there was," he says ruefully. "Maybe today. If I get a letter I'll bring it right over, okay?"

"Thank you, Jacob."

* * *

There is no letter that day. Jake runs off his frustration, both in human and in wolf form. No letter the next day, or the next, and Jake becomes irritable and snappish.

And then finally there _is_ a letter, and the moment Jake sees the familiar writing in the mailman's bag (he meets the mailman at the curb every morning, now), his heart grows three sizes. He shakes the mailman heartily by the hand and rips open the envelope, still standing there in the driveway.

_Dear Jacob_, it reads.

_I've just been having a lovely time with Akashi. She has come to live in Volterra, to be my lady's maid. It feels peculiar to have a lady's maid, and even more peculiar for it to be her, since she is a thousand years older than me and was for a time my mentor and caretaker._

_But the politics of Volterra, though vast and highly ramified, can be boiled down into one potent fact: Aro's word is law. Of course, the other two ancients are as powerful as Aro, in their way, but he is indisputably the craftsman of this coven's hierarchical ties. Demetri is among the most revered of the Guard, and as his wife I am afforded great privilege. But it seems I am useful to Aro of my own accord, also: though Akashi is more beautiful, accomplished, ancient, wise and powerful, she has not the gifts that I have. I believe Aro wishes to mold me._

_But Jacob, I do not know into what I am to be molded. I would make a miserable member of the Guard, that I know. I have but a half-strength, and could not best a vampire in might or speed alone. I can only guess that Aro's intentions for me run to a more political bent. Demetri has suggested that Aro might someday use me to help persuade the less persuadable of the vampire world that they are better off with the Volturi. I have heard rumors that there are those who resist, for what reason I cannot imagine. It is such an honor to be noticed by the Three. Only the exceptionally skilled are invited into the coven._

_Most of the time I avoid thinking on my position here. I have always been a member of the Volturi—or, as long as I can remember, anyway. I did not need to be persuaded; I was raised in their ways and have known no other life. But I wonder what it might be like to be someone else. You called me Nessie. I think, Who is this Nessie? How does she live? Does she have a family? Who does she love? I do not know her. I am not her and never will be._

_But I don't believe I am Nereid anymore, either. So many things about her have become foreign to me. Nereid—raised as a princess, pampered and petted within an inch of her spoiled life. Nereid, adored and cherished from the start. Nereid, unquestioning and accepting. Nereid belongs to the Volturi, Jacob. Unlike every other Volturo, even the three ancients, she was never an ordinary human with an ordinary life. She is no mere convert to Volturi. She is Volturi incarnate._

_I am not Renesmee. I am not Nessie. I am not even Nereid. I am no one. Nought, nada, nothing. Nary. Confused and alone, daughter of two ciphers and ward of three ancients. And, apparently, imprint of one wolf._

_I miss you, Jacob. You haven't come to see me in my dreams for too long._

_Your_

_Nary_

Jacob has to strain to keep his hands from curling into fists and punching a hole in something. Sometimes her letters are cheerful, simple accounts of her days. And sometimes they are this. _Volturi incarnate_, she calls herself. In all her letters, she has never once addressed the question that gnaws rat-like on his brain: She is Volturi through-and-through. Does that mean she's a murderer, like them? Does she play the same evil games? Jake is sure that she doesn't take pleasure in human suffering—she can't, she _couldn't_—but does she? He'll love her either way. He'd love her even if she murdered right in front of him. But things would be different. She would be an enemy, if she were truly like the Volturi. An enemy that he adored more with every passing breath, an enemy to be saved from herself. But an enemy nonetheless.

The thought is preposterous. She isn't his enemy, because she isn't like the Volturi. He has read between the lines and knows that Nary fears Aro; and if she fears Aro, then there must be some reason, some vital way in which she does not fall in line. She could very well be in danger. How can he help her? What can he do to circumvent the order?

Maybe Carlisle or Esme will have an idea. Jake pockets the letter, strips out of his shorts and ties them to his leg. He is on four paws in an instant, padding inland.

* * *

"Darling, I wish you would eat something." Demetri reaches for his wife, but she huffs irritably and sidles away.

"I _have_ eaten," she says. "I had a ram three nights ago. Just because I'm not eating what you eat doesn't mean I'm not eating. Has Aro been talking to you about it?"

"Aro?" Demetri pulls up in surprise. "No, Aro hasn't mentioned it. Why would he?"

"Never mind," mutters Nary. "It doesn't matter." She perches primly at her writing desk and begins shuffling papers around. Demetri stands motionless and watches her in the mirror of her vanity. She is so lovely. Even annoyed, even angry she is lovely. He doesn't know specifically why she is angry right now, since her period isn't due for another 12.6 days, but she has been like this since Russia. Four months now. Roused easily to irritation, edgy and evasive. Snapping at him one minute, reaching for him fondly the next. She claims it is only the shock of finding out about her parents, not to mention her terror for Demetri. Well, that's reasonable. But Demetri is healed now, nothing but scars to show where that creature wounded him, and still she stews. What happened? When will it stop? Demetri dwells on his wife's behavior constantly, his mind going in circles. She's unhappy, maybe even depressed. There must be something he can do for her, but what—_what?_

"Do you mind?" she asks without turning or even looking up from whatever it is she's writing. Demetri leaves the room on silent feet, his heart troubled.

* * *

"Esme and Carlisle are hunting," says Rosalie coldly, letting Jake into the foyer. "Don't expect me to feed you."

"I don't," says Jake. As if he would ever accept a bite Rosalie offered. She'd probably spit in it, or worse.

"Yo, Jake-man!" booms Emmett, leaping over the banister to land heavily but quietly in the marble foyer. "You got a letter for us?"

"Yeah," says Jake, holding out the sheet of paper. Emmett and Rosalie read it in seconds and look up. "It's...not good," says Jake.

"When is it ever?" says Rosalie, her angelic face crumpled in unhappiness.

* * *

"You have a question for me, skilled Demetri," says Aro, nodding to acknowledge Demetri's deep bow.

"Yes, milord," says the tracker. "It is about my wife."

"Ahh, Nereid," says Aro, sighing sadly. "She hasn't been quite right since her unfortunate encounter in the north, has she?"

"No, milord," affirms Demetri, head bowed. "I am terribly worried about her. She is impatient and irritable; she tires easily yet sleeps poorly. She has lost interest in much that used to please her. I fear for her health, milord."

"That's not a question, Demetri," says Aro.

"I beg of you," says Demetri humbly, "in your wisdom do you divine some solution? Never in all my years have I seen a full vampire exhibit so abrupt a change. But you have lived longer, you have met more of our kind. I have hidden it as long as I could, thinking it impertinent to trouble you with so small a matter. But lately it has seemed less small and I can no longer think what to do."

"You are right to come to me," says Aro kindly, taking Demetri's hand between his own and gazing into the tracker's eyes with gentle sympathy. "As it happens, I too have noticed your wife's odd behavior. Do not you think that her diet might be accountable? Animal blood pollutes the mind and disorders the organs. She should be drinking good, wholesome human blood."

"I have suggested this to her," says Demetri, "but she will have none of it. I would hardly force her to feed against her will."

"Of course not," says Aro quickly. "It is her choice...up to a point. Yet would we not be remiss if we allowed her to destroy her health? Why does she do it, my child? Why does she dirty herself with unclean blood?"

"She says she cannot stand the screams," says Demetri.

"Well, that is a simple matter enough," says Aro jovially. "We will give her sleeping victims! Problem solved."

"My lord, long have I argued for such a solution. Before taking up permanent residence here, her victims never screamed. She has a bearing which both comforts and reassures all she meets, more even than a full vampire could do. She charms everyone completely, and seemingly without effort or even conscious thought. I have begged her to simply return to the life we led before, when we hunted together far from Volterra and her victims rarely knew to fear her even after she had drained them near to death. But she will not listen. It seems that, having once renounced human blood, she is determined not to take it up again."

"This is worrying," says Aro. "Still, Dr. Schaal informs me that her physical health has not worsened. Until it does, we can have no reason to intervene with her diet. Perhaps it is time to look deeper."

"Milord...?"

"There is a vampire who was sired in Austria some hundred years ago, a nomad named Hugo Müller. He is young, of course, but I have been interested in him for some time. It seems that before his transformation he was a rather skilled psychoanalyst in Vienna. To his new life he brought a remarkable gift. He can describe with astonishing accuracy the mental state of anyone who speaks to him. Perhaps he will be able to help us."

"I hope he may, milord. Shall I seek him?"

"That will not be necessary," says Aro. "I will formally invite him to Volterra. Demetri, my child, do not give up hope. She is young, and will be well enough anon."

* * *

_Dear Jake,_

_They've brought a very special vampire to have a gander at me. His name is Dr. Hugo Müller, and apparently he was a psychonalyst in Vienna back when Freud was still smoking cigars and despising women. It seems that they are anxious about my mental health because I've been a little odd lately. Aro thinks it's because I don't eat humans anymore; he says it's unhealthy. But Dr. Schaal (my physician) says my physical health is fine, hence the need for a brain doctor._

_Here is what our first session was like: I went into a room empty of anything other than a single chair. I sat in the chair and Dr. Müller entered the room and stood behind me. Then he asked me all sorts of questions and I gave him brief answers,_

_"How do you like Volterra?" he asked._

_"I like it well enough," I said. "It is very beautiful and...large. I suppose."_

_"Mmmm," he said. "And are you happy here?"_

_"I am not unhappy."_

_"Indeed," he said. There is no reason for him to still have a Viennese accent—Demetri only has a Greek accent when he's speaking Greek—and so I assume that Dr. Müller affects his accent to seem more Brain Doctorly. "What do you think of your husband?"_

_"I love him. He is my best friend."_

_"What do you remember of your childhood?"_

_"I remember most of it, except the very early parts. I have a very good memory, compared to humans. It's photographic." (Just so you know, that's how I can recreate our conversation so flawlessly for you. Handy, is't not?)_

_"Is that so?"_

_"Yes, it is."_

_And so on and so on. This dragged on for hours. Neither of us said anything important. I have another session with him in a week. I wish he would tell me what he thinks, instead of just Aro. (I have no proof of this, but I can only assume that Aro knows everything I said. Aro always knows everything that goes on in Volterra.)_

_Oh, Jake. You were in my dream again two nights ago. I see now that when I dreamed of you in my childhood, I was actually remembering you. My memories of that time are so vague, although I should not complain; no normal human would remember anything from the first several years of life, let alone the first eight days. Still it saddens me, now that I know you are real, to see how few memories of you I truly have. It does not seem right. In my dreams as a little girl, you were always surrounded by a nebula of golden light. And you looked so young, compared to how you look in real life! A mere boy. And always smiling._

_That is why I did not recognize you right away in Russia. You are so altered. I did not know you until you smiled._

_I hope that you are smiling now. Your smile pulls the sun across the sky._

_Love,_

_Nary_

Jake is not smiling. He is barely even breathing. He wonders if she understands just what her letters do to him. Probably not. Nary—he thinks of her as Nary, now, and it does hurt; but then, he always knew little Nessie was dead—Nary is not privy to Jake's thoughts as he is to hers. Not by _his_ choice, oh, no. If he thought there were a way to communicate with her without putting her life in danger—but there isn't. He'll have to be satisfied with this distinctly _unsatisfying_ one-way mirror.

But still...

_"I don't eat humans anymore,"_ she wrote.

Jake feels his face splitting into a Glasgow grin. He resists the urge to punch the air, and then realizes there's no reason to resist the urge to punch the air, and then punches the air. Then he yells, _"Fuuuuuuck yeeeeeaaahhhh!"_ Then he jumps and stomps and skips around the driveway a few hundred times in a row, whooping.

"What the hell is going on out there?" calls Billy from the front door.

"Nary doesn't eat people!" Jake shouts back. "I don't know what she _does_ eat, but it isn't people!"

"That's some damn good news, boy!" says Billy. "I'll grab the champagne." He disappears into the house and then reappears with a couple of beers. He and Jake clink cans and drink. Jake can't stop smiling. There was a lot in that letter, plenty of stuff that makes him emphatically non-smiley, but he so rarely gets good news like this that he wants to savor it just a little longer.

"She doesn't eat people," says Jake wonderingly. "She doesn't eat people. She really doesn't. She told me so."

"I gotta say, I'm amazed," admits Billy. "Those Volturi are real fuckers. Ain't like she had anyone to teach her murderin' people is wrong."

"I never doubted her for a minute," says Jake smugly, and also one-hundred-percent dishonestly. He had no way of knowing whether she was a cannibal or not. If he'd truly believed in her, he wouldn't be so relieved right now. And besides... "She used to eat people," he says, looking back down at the letter. "She says she doesn't eat them _anymore_. That means she used to. Right? Yeah. It does."

"That is a bit of a downer," allows Billy.

"But I mean, she was obviously indoctrinated," Jake goes on. "She says the head leech doesn't like her not eating people. I guess I should just be thankful she gave it up at all. There's probably a lot of pressure to conform."

"I imagine that's so."

"You know, I bet Carlisle would know a lot about this. I'm gonna go show'im the letter. See ya, Dad." Jake slaps his dad once on the shoulder (a version of hugging that better suits their manly dynamic) and in moments he is phased and flying toward the glass mansion.

* * *

"They were mostly polite enough about my diet," says Carlisle. "Caius mocked me, but Caius mocks everyone. I wouldn't imagine that they personally introduced her to the vegetarian lifestyle, but now that she's discovered it on her own they won't prevent her following it." He glances over the rest of the letter and his eyebrows knit together. "I'm more worried about this part," he says, pointing. Esme and Rosalie peer over his shoulder.

"Oh, dear," says Esme. "That doesn't sound good."

"Do you really think her shrink is telling everything to Aro?" asks Rosalie in disgust. "And she's just okay with that?"

"Why wouldn't she be?" says Alice. "Aro knows everything about everyone in Volterra. And they've obviously raised her not to value her own privacy that much. I mean, isn't that sort of what it was like for us...you know, when Edward was still...?" The mood in the room grows noticeably bleaker, the way it always does when Edward's name is brought up, or Bella's.

"Well, I think it's revolting," says Rosalie, shaking off the sadness. "Poor Nar—Nessie. Dammit, Jake, now you've got me calling her Nary."

"It's her name," he says, shrugging.

"No, it's not," spits Rosalie. "Her name is _Renesmee Carlie Cullen_. You were the one who started calling her Nessie. Now you're perfectly happy to call her by the name those freaks gave her?"

"It's how she signs her letters," says Jake. "It's what she wants to be called."

"Yeah, and you just do _everything_ she wants, don't you?" mutters Rosalie. "Stupid imprint."

"Yes," agrees Jake wholeheartedly, "it is stupid. Speaking of which, have you guys gotten any bright ideas?"

"Like we'd tell you if we did," says Emmett—not unkindly. "You'd just get in the way again."

"You're right," says Jake. "Don't tell me."

* * *

**Welcome to the new story! Let me know your thoughts. Hope you like!**


	2. Life on La Push, Life in Volterra

_Dear Jake,_

_Dr. Müller doesn't say much, and I can't really be honest with him because he tells Aro everything, I am pretty sure. It's not that I have anything to hide from Aro, but...well, no one here knows I write to you, is all I'm saying. And it should stay that way. I think I've found a way to circumvent Aro's all-seeing eye. I discovered it by accident after we returned here from Russia. You see, I'd been showing Demetri my memories of you and me meeting, only I sort of edited it for him, and when Aro read my thoughts upon our return to Volterra, he only ended up with the things I was showing Demetri. I didn't mean to do it, I swear. But I think my ability to transmit thoughts through touch may have given me an unusual amount of control over which thoughts leave my mind. If I dwell long enough on an altered memory, that memory is the one Aro extracts. I am certain that if he tried hard enough he could take all of my memories, unedited, but so far he has not suspected a need to do so._

_I feel terribly underhanded, doing things this way. But he would never understand; I must not allow him to know I write to you. And think of you. And wonder about you. I have so many questions I would ask you if I could, but of course that is impossible._

_Anyway, back to Dr. Müller. I find his psychiatric methods rather outmoded. Mostly he asks me semi-related questions and I answer them. We don't have conversations, though. Just hours of short, disconnected thoughts strung together. I am not sure what this is meant to accomplish. It is like no therapy I have read about in my books._

_He asks me about my dreams, but I don't tell him very much about those. He asks me about my reading. I read mostly mythologies, fantasies and histories. I adore Neil Gaiman. Demetri took me to meet him once when I was a girl. He did a book-signing in London (I lived there from when I was three to when I was eight, before which I lived in Crete). Of course a Volturo would never dream of queueing up with the unwashed masses; instead Mr. Gaiman took tea with his publicists and Demetri and me before the signing. It was brief but memorable. He told me he sees no reason to think magic isn't real, because any half-decent magician will know to hide it. I thought this was very funny, though not for the same reasons as he. I considered showing him a picture when I shook his hand goodbye, but Demetri was standing right there and so I refrained._

_I've a feeling that they want me in psychotherapy because I am being difficult. I've been temperamental lately. The Volturi are not used to so changeable a temper as I have. A vampire's temper is usually quite stable. This doesn't mean that vampires are never moody, it just means that a moody vampire is always moody, and a cheerful one is always cheerful. Any fluctuations are very slight. Whatever they were like in life, particularly at the moment they were turned, is usually what they are like for all eternity. Few things can alter a vampire's basic personality. Oh, I am told that newborn vampires are more erratic, though I've never met one and can only take it on faith. And I suppose falling in love alters a vampire permanently, as does losing the object of said love. But these changes are rare._

_I, on the other hand, change daily—even hourly. One moment I am happily dreaming by the hearth, the next moment I am racing out of Volterra weeping and yelling. I blame my human half for this. I wonder if my mother was temperamental when she still lived. Or if all humans are like this and I just don't realize._

_But I did realize one thing. Writing to you—well, it has become one of the highlights of my week. I am always much more cheerful and optimistic when I've just sent off a letter. Even Demetri notices. I am not sure why this is, really. Writing to you does not take up the bulk of my time. I have many interests, many hobbies. I could spend hours and hours listening to Akashi tell me stories about life in the court of Empress Shōshi. Did I tell you that Akashi was a Fujiwara? She was a cousin to the Empress herself, and knows the true identity of Murasaki Shikibu (it's not who you think). _

_Oh, I wish I could be like Akashi. She is flawless; even in the court of the Empress she was deemed uncommonly beautiful. When she was alive, the ladies of the court would hold poetry contests, and in the summer their musical recitals were timed to coincide with the chirping of night insects. In the winter, they would sit for hours contemplating the mysterious beauty of a twig glazed over with ice. Akashi tells me that one of the most glorious moments she can recall from her mortality was when a sudden late frost struck the imperial palace, and the plum blossoms were all iced over. She wept when the ice melted, overcome by "mono no aware". Can you even imagine leading such a beautiful life?_

_She was only about twenty-five when she was turned by a nomad who caught a glimpse of her silken underskirt and was thenceforth smitten. She rejected him as soon as she had regained self-control in her new life as a vampire, and has never taken a true mate (though she has had unnumbered lovers)._

_In truth, Jacob, as much as I might long to be like Lady Akashi, I know I never will be. She is as smooth and unruffled as a calm pond. She is always perfect; her voice always moderate and musical, her hands always still and graceful, her conversation always poetical and witty. I am not like her at all. I am capricious and impassioned instead of still and refined. I flit from one thing to another, unable to finish one task before I begin the next, yet sometimes I will sit down with a book or a pen and paper and realize only six hours later that any time has passed. I am easily distracted by my own thoughts; my mind is undisciplined and I am totally lacking in what Akashi calls "sunao"._

_I should count myself lucky, then, that no one expects me to be Lady Akashi. I have dear friends here at Volterra, and I believe they enjoy my very changeability because it is something they will never attain themselves. I am told that immortality can stretch out into tedium for a vampire, whose perceptions are at once finer and more infinite than mine or (probably) yours. Having me around gives the Volturi something to do other than ponder eternity. _

_Love,_

_Nary_

* * *

"She's wonderful, isn't she?" says Jake happily, re-reading the letter over Esme's shoulder. "She's so smart. I'm gonna have to look up all that Japanese shit."

"She expresses herself beautifully," agrees Esme with a smile.

"I think she's awesome," says Emmett. "She writes just like Edward. Well, not _just like_ Edward, 'cause she has a sense of humor. But she gets all formal, just like him."

"I think she's more like Bella," says Rosalie dreamily. "I remember when Bella was pregnant, we used to imagine what the baby would be like. That was the only time I ever heard Bella talk about what she wanted."

"Yeah," says Alice sadly, "the rest of the time she just worried about what other people wanted. I wish I'd done more that was just for her. I thought if I bought her enough clothes and threw her enough parties she'd start to like them..."

"You couldn't know what would happen," Jasper comforts her.

"Anyway," says Jake, "even if she didn't like parties, she was still crazy about all of you." It used to seriously bum Jake out that Bella preferred the rich white people to poor brown him, but he understands things better now. The Cullens represented an ideal for Bella Swan. Jake represented a reality, and it was one that she didn't want. Looking back on the way he behaved after the wolf thing started, Jake can't really blame her.

When he imprinted on Nessie, the Bella years suddenly snapped into perspective, and he learned very quickly how pointless was his fixation with winning her approval. He and Bella just weren't a good match. He still didn't have a very high opinion of Edward—he knows for sure that Edward wasn't any better for Bella than Jake was—but hey, that was her choice. Jake became his worst self when he was around her. He became moody and demanding and entitled and self-centered. He thought the universe owed him. Imprinting on Nessie was, for eight days, the best thing that could have happened to him because it illuminated just how little the universe revolves around Jacob Black, just how little his self-centered desires really matter in the grand scheme of things. Nothing like an imprint to smash things into perspective.

Of course, that's also the reason he went off the deep end when he thought she was dead. But she's alive now. It's time for Jacob Black to start being a decent person again.

* * *

_Jake,_

_It can be trying to live with no one but vampires, especially since my essential meaty-ness makes me an open book. Everyone has been treating me with kid gloves lately, watching my every move, and I'm sure it's just because I am half-human. They expect me to fly off the handle at a moment's notice, because I lack the steadiness of a true vampire. They can all hear when my heart is racing, they can all see when I am blushing or when I've been crying. (I am an ugly crier. My face gets all red and my eyes swell up like pufferfish and my nostrils flare. I am sure if you could see it you would die laughing.)_

_Vampires can't cry, did you know that? Not only is the blood in their veins entirely replaced by venom when they transform, so is every other fluid that serves to defend the body in any way. Saliva, lymph, aqueous and vitreous humors, bile, cerumen...you get the picture. _

_Oddly enough, there are a few fluids that vampires retain in a modified form after they change. Obviously, one is semen, or else I wouldn't exist. A surprising one is endolymph, which is the stuff in your ears that allows you to keep your balance. In vampires, endolymph is roughly the same as in humans, although it is rather...well, purer, I suppose. But the hairs in the inner ear that detect the level of the endolymph are a million times more sensitive, which is why a vampire can do eighty-five complicated mid-air flips off the dome of the Sistine Chapel and still land on her feet. I wonder if you have a similar feature? I thought you had very good balance, right up until I knocked you over with no effort at all._

_How do I know all this about vampires, you ask? Well, I spend much of my time at Volterra buried in the library. Most of the books were acquired by Marcus, who has an inquisitive bent. They call it the Biblioteca San Marco Lucente, a play on the name of its vampire founder and of the Catholic saint who wrote down the sermons of St. Peter (they really go in for papal allusion around here). It is the finest library in all of vampire-dom on the subject of—you guessed it—vampires. In fact, it is probably the finest library of all time for every subject. This library is seven stories high, carved in extravagant detail inside and out by vampire craftsmen of the past, and it occupies the area of two city blocks. Believe me when I say that it is easy to get lost in there—lost in the rooms, lost in the maze of stacks, lost in thought._

_The first three floors of the Library are given over to the classics of human literature. Grand first-edition leather tomes, books that were hand-lettered by medieval monks, scrolls curled around long-dead languages, papyrus covered in hieroglyphs and even ancient clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform (which, incidentally, Marcus can read as easily as you or I would read See Spot Run). The books on the first floors would, if sold, be worth enough to purchase the Earth several times over. But the real treasures are in the top four floors, wherein are housed all the writings of vampires. There are biographies, autobiographies, philosophies, anthologies, histories, medical texts, legal texts, books of poetry, essays on the nature of vampires, essays on the nature of humans, essays on the nature of animals and trees and obscure metaphysical theory. There are catalogues of nature, of human and vampire artifacts, of art, architecture and craft. An entire wing is devoted to the library of music. I am utterly passionate about what western humans call Early Music and vampires call Second High Occidental Music._

_And there are marvelous fictions, too. Many of the vampires I've met have developed very thorough faculties of imagination. They have to, or they will die of boredom after the first century._

_Nearly every book in the library, and certainly all those written by vampires, is hand-lettered with more elegance and artistry than a printing-press could ever hope to duplicate. Most of them are also cunningly illuminated. Plenty of the original authors and illustrators have long since succumbed to in-fighting, but some are yet living. In fact, several of them work at the Biblioteca as librarians or, where I am concerned, navigators._

_In addition to the subjects named above, there is now a very small-but-growing collection on hybrid biology. I have thumbed through them, but they are so familiar there is hardly any point, since they are entirely about me. _

_Aglaia is the sixteen-hundred-year-old head of librarians at the Biblioteca, and my personal savior/sherpa when navigating the stacks. She is rigorously methodical and has no need of a cataloguing system. She says that books sing out to her and that even when vampires reshelve books wrong or take them without asking, she always knows where they are (and who to yell at). Having seen how infinite the Biblioteca is, I understand why Aglaia's gifts are so treasured here at Volterra. She is one of the most exalted members of the coven, respected as much (in her way) as any Guard; she is Marcus's right hand. She has a power somewhat like Alec's though less inclusive: she can generate a field of silence up to twenty feet around her person. To get her attention, you have to stand respectfully in her line of sight with your hands folded and your head down. And even when you do get her attention, she is not always happy to see you. But it is worth it, to me. I sometimes think her brain contains more trivia than the rest of the world put together. _

_If Aro has the chief oversight of the Guard, Marcus is the de facto leader of the legions of artists, musicians and domestic staff that enrich not only Volterra but the entire vampire and human world. You would not believe me if I told you how many relics of antiquity that humans claim for their own—cathedrals, palaces, works of music and art and dance—are actually the creation of immortals, most of them subsidized by the Volturi. Henges are the least of it._

_I still do not know what Caius does, other than hover around the edges of things and mock people. If I ever figure it out, you are the first person I'll tell._

_I have time for no more this letter. I hope that you are well, Jacob._

_Love,_

_Nary_

* * *

"She's...she's a nerd," says Jake reverently as he reads the letter again. "That's the only explanation for it. Who else but a nerd would give so many shits about vampire biology?"

"Right?" says Emmett. "That's pretty cool about the endolymph, isn't it? I had no idea."

"Nor did I want to," shudders Alice.

"You don't have to go name-calling—" begins Rosalie sternly, but Jake cuts her off.

"It's _awesome_ that she's a nerd," sighs Jake happily.

* * *

"Uncle Jake, how come you're a were-woof?" Joseph doesn't look up from the coloring book he is filling in with a mechanical pencil. Jake grits his teeth against the squeaking of loose lead on newsprint.

"Because my great-granddaddy was a werewolf, that's why," says Jake. "Why are you a Jokester?"

Joseph giggles. "'Acause that's my _name_, silly!"

"We tried to keep the whole werewolf thing from the boys," comments Rachel from the corner, "but it turns out Paul's a moron."

"'Turns out'?" repeats Jake. "I coulda told you that, Rach."

"Can I help it if I only know one kind of story?" Paul asks, trying to wrestle Richard into his jammies. "Hold _still,_ you little—" he mutters. Richie wriggles away and goes sprinting half-naked down the hallway. "He's like an oiled otter," says Paul ruefully.

"It's not my bedtime!" shouts Richie from the bathroom, where he seems to have barricaded himself.

"You're being punished, you ungrateful little twerp!" shouts Paul. He winks at Jake. "Chip off the old block, isn't he?" Jake laughs.

"What's a old block?" asks Joseph serenely.

"Your dad's an old block," says Jake. Paul throws a shoe at him, which he dodges easily. "Please," he says. "Pathetic."

"I can still take you," mutters Paul.

Rachel bursts out laughing. "Yeah," she says, "right."

"I can!" says Paul plaintively.

"Take him where?" says Joseph hopefully, running over to Uncle Jake, his footed jammies sliding over the linoleum. "Can I come?"

"Your daddy wants to beat up Uncle Jake," says Rachel. Joseph giggles adorably.

"You're right, Jokester," says Jake. "It is a pretty silly idea."

"Yeah, yeah," says Paul, settling back on the couch and swigging his beer. "I ain't exactly what I used to be. You know, Jake, I feel like you're actually _bigger_ than you were when we used to patrol."

"I am," says Jake. "I put on about another twenty pounds after I started phasing again."

"All in your skull?" asks Rachel innocently. Paul snorts. Joseph grins from one adult to another. Jake smiles contentedly.

"More or less," he agrees.

* * *

**No, I'm not just trying to lull you into a false sense of security with another blissfully placid chapter. Why do you ask?**

**Leave a review and thank you very much!**


	3. In Guangzhou

_Dear Jake,_

_I have been feeling much better about, well, everything of late. It's probably the weather; we've had weeks now of perfectly glorious sunshine, neither too hot nor too cold. And Aro is sending Demetri on a mission in a few days, and guess what? I'm going to go with him! Isn't it wonderful? I've never been allowed to accompany Demetri on his trips for the coven. I think they are only letting me go now because of how odd I've been. They think it'll shake me out of my melancholy._

_I don't mean to be melancholy, truly I don't. But I am helpless against the mire of my thoughts._

_I found out that the term "sire" is not merely ceremonial. Did you know that when an older vampire sires a new one, the venom from the older vampire becomes an integral part of the new vampire's DNA? Oh, the transformative process is extremely interesting. I've never seen it done, and of course I know it is painful, but it is fascinating as well._

_Newborns generally look more or less like they did as humans, but not all venom is the same, and the differences have been studied extensively for generations in the labs at Volterra. For example, Demetri was created by an Egyptian vampire named Amun. Amun's venom belongs to a type that has a predisposition for...exaggeration, shall we say? This gene expresses itself in different ways and to different degrees. Some believe that if Demetri had been turned by a vampire who lacked that gene, he would not have developed his tracking abilities to such a perfect extent; that is, both Demetri's own tracking talents and Amun's particular venom were required to create Demetri-The-Primo-Tracker. This is just a theory, of course. It can't exactly be tested. Aro is thought to hold the same gene, not that you'll ever catch him acknowledging anything in common with Amun. It amuses me that the two might be venom-cousins, given how much they hate each other._

_Another example: One of my friends, Felix, is a venom-cousin to another friend of mine, Heidi. They both bear a type of venom that increases the impact of physical traits. In his case, it led to a preternatural physical strength. In hers, to an ability to seduce literally anyone. I find it all very arbitrary and silly, but then again, so is human DNA. (But honestly, Heidi's a riot at parties. It's impossible to be bored around her, although the universally-held desire to impress her has led to more than a few brawls.)_

_There are some qualities, however, that are common to all strains of venom. During the transformation, the venom forces all foreign or irregular agents out of every cell in the body. That means that if there are cancerous cells in the tissues they will be attacked and destroyed by the venom. It also means that if a person with tattoos or artificially colored hair is bitten, the venom will force the ink out of the dermis and the dye out of the hair follicles. _

_Venom also has the ability to change a person's entire shape and size. A person who is malnourished at the time of their transformation will fill out to whatever size they would have attained on a healthy and normal diet. A person with dwarfism caused by achondroplasia will retain their smaller stature, simply becoming a more attractive version of their short-limbed self. But a person with dwarfism caused by growth hormone deficiency due to a damaged pituitary gland will suddenly shoot up to whatever height they would have had with a healthy pituitary gland, breaking and re-growing every cell of their body in the process. (As a result of this tendency, the transformation is even more painful for people with damaged or malnourished bodies than for those in good health.) _

_Split ends will heal, wrinkles will fill out with collagen before hardening, axial asymmetry in the face and body will smooth itself out, missing limbs will even regrow—provided their absence is a result of accident and not of genome. (If a vampire loses a limb after the change, however, if it is burned or otherwise destroyed, they are out of luck: that limb will never be replaced.) The end result is that someone could potentially look quite different after a transformation, far beyond the sparkling skin and red eyes. There are a lot of very tall vampires out there, a much higher proportion than tall humans, because historically even humans with a genetic code dictating tallness have not achieved their full height thanks to environmental factors. Most of the human population throughout the history of the world hasn't had enough to eat, and tends toward comparative shrimpyness. _

_Am I boring you yet, Jacob? Here, I'll try harder._

_I once met a female vampire who was a renowned beauty in life, in the American antebellum South. And the first thing she did when she woke up after her transformation? She threw a tantrum because after years and years of squishing her ribs into a fashionable shape, she suddenly looked as if she'd never worn stays in her life! Gone was her 20-inch waist, replaced by the 28-inch one she was genetically predestined to have! She thinks it's a funny story, now that she has some perspective. It really does go to show how fleeting our idea of beauty truly is._

_I, having vampire DNA already written into my genes, am essentially immune to most environmental factors that might negatively impact the full execution of my genetic blueprint. Nothing will keep me from having the height, shape, eye color and hair color that my genes dictate. My body can be invaded by pathogens because it is made up partly of vulnerable human cells, but I also have some diluted venom running through my bloodstream, which destroys pathogens before they have a chance to make me sick. I can get a sunburn if I spend all day in the sun without a hat, but by the next day the venom in my bloodstream will have repaired the damage and returned me to my usual pallid self. It's like I'm in a constant, non-painful state of vampiric transformation! Bizarre, right?_

_Do you know what all this means? It means that covens consisting of related vampires—ones bitten by the same vampire, or at least related through no more than a few generations of bites—are very like what humans call "families," related genetically as well as by bonds of affection and loyalty. This may not mean much to you, Jake, because you are—or, at least, were—fully human. You have people who look like you, who have the same blood type or the same personality traits or the same allergies. I have never really yearned for a genetic family because I was happy with my adoptive one. I was raised by Akashi and Alessandra (but we won't talk about Alessandra, because she is terrible). And Demetri has been a part of my life as long as I can remember. I assumed I didn't have a proper family anyway; as far as I know, I am a genetically unique creature._

_Yet now I discover that I might have relatives after all! Immortal ones, ones I could have a chance of meeting some day. Whoever sired my father is, in a very real and literal sense, my grandmother or grandfather. I wish I knew who it was and if they are still living. There are extensive genealogical records in the Biblioteca, and I have searched long and hard for my parents, but I know so little about them. My father was an Edward and my mother was a Bella, but I don't know what their last names were, where and when my father lived as a human, when he was changed, or anything. You try sauntering into the Biblioteca and asking Aglaia for help locating a phantom; it isn't pretty._

_So now my mind goes in circles, repeating all I know about my lineage, hoping for some detail to suddenly take on meaning. My father, an Edward who lived in or near Forks, WA. That's where my mother lived when he met her. I think. I can only guess at this, because Aro wasn't specific and I'm not about to ask him to elaborate. He gets touchy when I pry into my parents' story. But I know you knew them and Forks is the town closest to La Push, so I assume that is where they lived. But maybe they lived in Seattle? Or Port Angeles? _

_I wish I knew how old they were. My father was a hundred or so, but what age was his body? Demetri's body is in its mid- or late-twenties, but he doesn't know for sure because they didn't keep very good track of these things back then. He doesn't know anything about his human biological family, either, because I guess if you don't work hard to remember that stuff in your first year or so you'll forget it almost entirely. Most vampires I've met have only fuzzy memories of their human lives. Akashi is an exception, because she spent all her time as a newborn meditating on her life. That is because she thought she had died and gone to heaven, and she just assumed meditating on your life is what you're supposed to do in heaven. Isn't that something?_

_Anyway, whoever sired my father might have sired others, too. I could have aunts and uncles! Cousins! If my father ever sired anyone other than my mother, I could have sort-of half-siblings! If only I knew more._

_Oh Jacob, my Jake. _

_It is awful not to know who I am._

_Love,_

_Nary_

* * *

"How is she, milord?" Demetri asks anxiously. He has been summoned to Aro's private study—an honor rarely extended to him before, but it seems appropriate given the intimate subject of today's meeting.

"Most peculiar, by Dr. Müller's estimation," says Aro sadly. "She suffers greatly from melancholy, yet is restless and nervous. He has seen this tendency in the female specimen before. She seems to sustain a mild form of hysteria, hardly surprising in one of her sex."

"Did he say why she's been so...hysterical?" asks Demetri. He tries to mask his distaste for the word, which doesn't seem to want to stick to his wife. "Is there some underlying cause?"

"That is not Dr. Müller's power," says Aro a little severely, as if to rebuke Demetri for his presumption. Demetri bows his head respectfully. "He reads only the present state of mind, not the past or the future. He will continue to meet with her. Be of good cheer, my child. They have met only a few times; you will have your eternity with her, and one way or another she will be hale and happy. It is best not to think overmuch on it. Bring her with you to Guangdong. Felix will be with you, but he will return to Volterra as soon as your mission is completed. Do not hurry back. Enjoy the time away. See if that does not improve her spirits."

* * *

Demetri knocks on the door of his wife's boudoir. A year ago, she would have laughed at him for knocking; now, he feels as if he must always walk on eggshells with her. He never knows when to expect a good day and when to expect a bad day.

"Come in," she chirps.

"Hello, darling," says Demetri, striding to her side and kissing her cheek. "You're looking lovely."

"Thank you, sweetie," she says, smiling serenely as she pins one last curl in place. She stands up and twirls for him, her bias-cut silk dress slinking around her.

"What is the occasion?" he asks, his hands already skimming down her back.

"Mmm," she says. "Nothing, really. I just wanted to look nice."

"You've succeeded," says Demetri, his hands cupping her bottom. She wriggles a little against him and plants her lips against his throat. This promises to be a Good Day. Or, more precisely, a Good Night.

"Let's go out tonight," whispers Nary into Demetri's collar. "I feel like being one with nature. What do you think?"

"Mmngh," says Demetri, instantly hard and aching to be inside this shimmering witch-woman.

"Not yet," she scolds playfully, leading the way out of the room. Demetri groans in strained anticipation.

_Aro was right to be so optimistic_, he thinks as he follows his wife out of Volterra, his eyes on her perfect ass, his heart in her perfect hands.

* * *

"I beg of you," pleads the golden-skinned vampire cowering in the corner. "Forgive me! I will fix it, I swear! Clemency, I beg of you!"

"It is too late for clemency, Huan," says Demetri. "Look at these poor girls. What have you done to them?" He gestures to the four human teenagers clinging to each other in a corner of the room.

"They adore me!" insists Huan. "Can I help it? It is you they fear, not me!"

"They are human," says Demetri. "You have been careless."

"That can be changed! Please! It will take but a moment!" He tries to move past Demetri to the girls, but Felix blocks his way.

"You could never control four newborns," says Felix scornfully. "You can't even control yourself."

"Then I will kill them now, and end it!" offers Huan. The girls shriek and cling more tightly. Demetri rolls his eyes.

"Actually," says Felix cheerfully, "_We_ will kill them and end it. And you. Easier done than said!" He laughs a belly laugh.

"No!" wails Huan. "I beg of you, mercy!"

The only thought in Demetri's mind as he wrenches Huan's head from his neck and turns dispassionately on the screaming humans is relief that Nary took the day to go sight-seeing.

* * *

Two nights later, Felix has returned to Volterra and Demetri and Nary are alone in a hotel room on the outskirts of Guangzhou. This trip has been a disaster. Nary is clearly freaking out about something. It isn't as if she saw what happened to the humans, she can't be getting all mushy about _that_. But she has been twitchy and paranoid, looking over her shoulder constantly.

"Love, what troubles you?" asks Demetri the twentieth time in a row that Nary uses her compact mirror to check behind her.

"Nothing!" she says with false brightness, giggling in a distinctly un-Nary-like way. "Sorry, darling. I've never been here before. Everything is just so..._big_. You're _absolutely sure_ no one's going to notice us? The sun isn't quite down."

"Nary," laughs Demetri, chucking her gently under the chin, "is that what you're worried about? Good heavens, I've been doing this for a long time. I know how not to get spotted by a human. Besides, it's almost sunset. Look, even if I stand directly in the sun I don't sparkle."

"You do to me," she murmurs.

"You have 20/2 vision. You can see the facets on a grain of sand. A human will never notice. I promise, we're safe. Besides, this is _me _we're talking about. Who's really going to sneak up on me, figure out I'm a vampire, and then sneak away without my noticing or, I don't know, _tracking _them?"

"You're right," she says, sighing. Then she hears a noise and jumps. She laughs foolishly. She bites her nails. "I'm being silly. I'll get used to it."

"Is there anything I can do that will make you feel better?" He reaches for her but she twirls out of his arms.

"Not now," she says distractedly. "I'm not in the mood."

Demetri furrows his brow. If this is what the whole vacation is going to be like, he's going to need _another_ vacation just to recover from this one.

"I think...I think I'll go shopping tomorrow," says Nary, looking to the east. "In the city. Do you mind?"

"Well..." Demetri hesitates. "It'll be sunny all day. I won't be able to come with you, love."

"Oh," she says. "Well...I really think it would take my mind off things. If I could just, you know, get used to it here. Guangzhou is the biggest city I've ever been in. I feel like an ant!"

"If it will make you feel better," sighs Demetri, "Then I think you should do it. Buy yourself something good." Nary smiles. She hugs Demetri. He begins to kiss her neck, but she _tsk_s and sidles away.

"Not tonight," she says again. "I'm tired."

Demetri frowns and watches her settle into the bed.

It's not that she never wants to have sex with him, he reflects unhappily. It's that she doesn't want to have sex with him thirty-seven times a day, which is roughly how often he wants to have sex with her. Vampires don't get tired. Or headaches. Or PMS.

Damn it all to hell.

* * *

"Darling, what's wrong? Please, Nary, please let me help you! Tell me what's going on! Why do you smell like blood? Where are you hurt?"

"Oh, 'Metri!" Nary throws herself into her husband's arms, sobbing like an infant, her fingers curled so tightly around her sea-glass that the knuckles are white. Demetri holds her and strokes her hair and waits for her to tell him what's going on. She cries herself into hiccups. She cries so hard she can't even breathe. Demetri has never seen her such a wreck. His heart breaks for her. Whoever did this to her is going to die painfully and slowly.

"What happened?" he asks an hour later, when she is lying quietly with her head pillowed on his lap, her eyes puffy and pink and her lips still trembling. "Nary, did someone hurt you?"

She turns her face away and Demetri sees another tear squeeze out of her swollen eyes, but she doesn't resume her wailing.

"It was horrible," she says tremulously. "I didn't even know, I didn't, I didn't even know..." She trails off into miserable silence.

"Know what, Nary? What happened?" Oh, someone will pay for this. Whatever just happened to her, someone will pay in blood.

"I didn't...I didn't...kn-know...I was p-p-_pregnant,_ 'Metri, oh god, oh god, how did this happen, oh god..." She is sobbing again, and Demetri is statue-still in shock, unable to process what he just heard.

"What are you talking about, Nary?" he asks urgently, combing his fingers through her hair in just the way that's always calmed her in the past. It works, albeit slowly.

"I was pregnant, I didn't even know," she whimpers. "It just...it just...I had these terrible pains at TaiKoo Hui, really bad cramps, and I thought maybe it was just, just, just _cramps_, you know? Only when I went to the bathroom...oh god..." She shudders in Demetri's arms. "Oh god, oh god, oh god. Why is this happening?"

Demetri curls himself protectively around her, suddenly realizing what has happened and suddenly understanding that there is no one he can kill for vengeance. The one who hurt her is already dead.

"Oh, Nary," he moans in anguish, "oh, my love, darling Nary, I should have been there, I'm so sorry—"

"Why is this happening?" she asks tearfully. "Why is this _HAPPENING_? I've always used birth control, we've always been careful, how could this _happen?_" Her voice rises until she is shouting. "What did I do _wrong_? _WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?"_

"Oh, darling, Nary, Nary, my love, this isn't your fault, it isn't anyone's fault..." Unbidden into his mind comes an image of whatever child he and Nary conceived together and he squeezes his eyes closed against the agony of this picture. A father. Briefly he was a father, and he didn't even know it. She miscarried before she even knew she had anything to miscarry. How can the gods punish her so cruelly? How did Demetri, who notices so much, fail to notice _this?_ He had never in all his existence been a father, and he has existed for an uncommonly long time. He never thought he would be. He never thought he _could_ be.

And now he isn't. Not anymore.

"Oh, Nary," he mourns, cuddling her curled-up body as close to his dead heart as she can go. "My darling, my love, I'm so sorry. A baby..." He realizes _baby_ was probably not a good word to use, because her keening is renewed even louder than before. A baby. She was carrying his baby, and now she isn't. She smells like blood and sweat and tears. Mostly blood.

He says no more after this, just rocks her shaking body and wishes desperately he could cry too.

* * *

**Uh oh, escalation. Let me know what your thoughts are, and thanks for reading.**


	4. What Really Happened In Guanzhou

_Jake,_

_I've done something terrible._

_I don't even know how to say this. You're the only person I can tell. I can't even tell Demetri. He would tell Aro, whether he meant to or not, and I am certain that Aro had something to do with it._

_I am writing this from the lobby of a women's health center in Guangzhou, China. They told me to stay here until I feel well enough to go home. They don't realize that I __can't__ go home, I __have__ no home. I just didn't know it until..._

_I should start over._

_It was nine days ago that I woke up with blood in my underwear. Not much. A few drops. Demetri wasn't with me, he was feeding at the time. Thank god for that. I burned the underwear and put in a tampon and prayed it wasn't what I thought it was._

_I can't tell this to anyone but you, Jake. Please, Jacob, my first friend, please understand. Please, please love me even after you've finished reading this letter. Please. At least don't hate me as I hate myself._

_We came to Guangzhou so Demetri could casually murder some people. I don't know who, I didn't go with him on the actual mission. That's his job with the Volturi, didn't you know that? Didn't I ever mention it? Humans, vampires, what difference does it make? He could be a good man, I'm sure of it. But he never will be, because his master will never give him the chance. Aro is the devil, Jacob. I didn't see it before, but I see it now. He sends my husband, so kind-hearted and generous and loving a man, to casually murder dissenters, to calmly and coolly rip the heads from those who, by accident or by design, threaten Aro's power._

_The first two days in China, Demetri and Felix tracked whoever Aro sent them to kill. I went into the city. I told him I wanted to sightsee. Would you like to know what sights I saw, Jake? I saw the inside of a clinic. I waited for two hours because I didn't have an appointment. My Mandarin is not excellent, but it sufficed._

_I peed in a cup. I waited some more._

_They told me I was pregnant. All the hormones were right there in the cup. Proof, all the proof I need that Aro is evil._

_You see, when I was a baby and they brought me into the fold, Aro employed a human doctor to look after my health. He was still my doctor when I married Demetri. He gave me an IUD. The most effective there is. It lasts for seven years. We were married seven years and two months ago, Jacob. Two months ago, on Aro's orders, Dr. Schaal replaced my IUD._

_On Aro's orders. The most effective birth control known to humankind or vampiredom. And after two months it failed._

_On Aro's orders._

_I do not have hard proof that Aro ordered Dr. Schaal to fuck me over. I do not need hard proof. I know it in my bones. I know it. It is true. Aro is the devil, Jacob. He did this to me. Made me a hostage to my own body, destroyed all my hope of salvation._

_I went back to Demetri. I thought. I didn't bother to pray this time; it is quite clear to me that there is no god, or if there is, god hates us. Hates me._

_I told him I wanted to go shopping. I went back into the city. I went to a health clinic, different from the other in case I was recognized._

_I waited three hours because I didn't have an appointment. My Mandarin isn't good, Jacob, but it sufficed. I had money. They understood what I wanted._

_There are ways to do it that don't hurt, you know. Or don't hurt as much. I wasn't so very far along, you see. They could have given me a pill. They could have given me an injection. But if you do it with a pill or an injection, you have to make two separate visits, and I couldn't risk it. Besides, is there a chance Demetri __wouldn't__ smell the foreign chemicals in my body? He can smell when I've had a lamb for lunch instead of a horse. I had to let them do it the old-fashioned way._

_They would have given me anaesthetic, but he would have smelled that too, so I went without._

_Aro is the devil, and I am a creature he has carved by hand. He will never let me go. He will do anything to keep me a slave to the Volturi. I used to think he liked me, that he was pleased by my gifts. He called me an "artist of the mind," and I was flattered. I know better, now. Demetri is one of Aro's most treasured peons, irreplaceable. And there are thousands of uses to which he might put my two gifts, all of them vile, I am sure. He wants me because he can use me; he wants me because I am Demetri's mate and he cannot afford to get rid of me. I can share thought through touch. Shields don't affect me, not even the powerful shield of Aro's personal bodyguard. I am a rare and cherished weapon, my friend. The jewel of the Volturi._

_But he knows that I have not been happy of late. I have given up human blood, which displeases Aro for no reason I can see. I am no longer one of them. An old man begged me to spare his wife and I haven't been one of them since. Her name was Mary, the old man said, and he was begging me not to kill him, and Aro made me drink him anyway. He stood there and watched me drink an old man whose dead wife was named Mary. He is the devil, Jacob._

_I am not one of them, and I am terribly afraid._

_It hurt when they did it. It hurts still. I feel empty. Better that I should be empty than that I should deliver an innocent child into Aro's hands. Perhaps he would have done a better job with my child than he did with me, molded it into a more perfect vessel of his own malice. A boy, bred to hate. A girl, bred to breed. They had me from a baby eight days old, and see what a thing they made of me. Imagine what they could do if they had a baby straight from the womb! My child would never be safe. The only way for it to be safe is for it to be dead._

_The only way for me to be safe is if I escape, or die in the attempt. I will do one or I will do the other. It will break Demetri's heart and I don't care. He is Aro's man, through and through. He would be a good man if he had the chance, but he never will. He doesn't deserve my love any more than I deserve his. He still has it, oh yes. I love him even more desperately now that I must leave him. But he taught me to be this. Who should suffer for it but him?_

_I do not rescind my order that you shall not seek me. If one of us has to die, it had better be me. I am beyond helping anyway. I've done such terrible things all my life. And I may not die. I may escape. I can't run away now, because Demetri is here and would catch up with me in a trice. I will have to plan. Don't come looking for me. I'll find you. If I don't, you'll know why._

_In my first letter to you I begged you to burn it and all subsequent communications. I hope you didn't. I hope you don't. Someone should know the truth about me. I don't know if I can hide this. And if I can't, what will happen to me?_

_Please love me still, Jake. At least do that. Someone ought to, when all this is ended._

_Your_

_Nary_

* * *

Jake's roar shakes the house to its foundations. In another second he has phased into the mantelpiece, and bricks begin to crash down the chimney as it collapses in on itself. He is too ferocious to control, too big to be believed. He doesn't leave very much of the front wall of the house as he passes through it. He is already down the street, a huge red wolf sprinting in broad daylight, before the ruined facade has even finished crumbling into rubble.

The glass front of the Cullen mansion fares even worse. They know he's coming but assume he'll stop and phase back before he destroys their house, and they are wrong. He can't shake this phase. He's got Nary's letter held by one corner in his teeth. Rosalie and Emmett fail to tackle him; Alice, Jasper and Carlisle barely slow him down.

"Jacob!" shouts Esme, loud and scared and yes, angry too. "Give me Nary's letter, Jacob." Jake opens his mouth; the letter and a howl escape from it at the same time. Esme snatches the pages from midair and reads it in 1.7 seconds. Then she shrieks a word that no one, not even Carlisle, has ever heard her say.

"What is it?" Carlisle asks frantically. They gather around her. Their eyes flick over the written page once.

In five more seconds, the first floor of the house is destroyed, a casualty of the six vampires and one werewolf who can't contain their rage and horror.

"We go after them!" roars Emmett. "Enough diplomacy, Carlisle. _Enough!_"

"They will _die_ for this," shouts Rosalie.

"A thousand deaths," agrees Esme passionately. "They will _suffer_."

"Yes," says Carlisle, his voice hard and brittle as a shard of glass. "They will pay with their lives. You speak aright, Emmett. Diplomacy is dead. So too will they be."

Jake has never heard Carlisle talk like this. Nor has he ever heard Esme call for violence, for murder, for vengeance. For once, they are in agreement. The six of them crouch in a semi-circle, their teeth bared, their hands curled into claws. Jake's fur bristles and the whole house vibrates with the force of his ceaseless growl.

"We will call the Denalis," says Esme. "At once. We will show them this letter and ask for their allegiance."

"We should go to Italy at once!" protests Rosalie. "We can't wait a minute—"

"No!" interrupts Esme. "We will not go and fall on our swords. That will not save Nary. We will have help. When we have burned their pieces, we will dance on their ashes. But first, we _call the Denalis_."

"If she does manage to escape," says Rosalie, "she'll come here. We need to have protection ready for her. We won't be enough, not by ourselves."

"We need a plan," says Carlisle. "That was my mistake before: I went to them without a plan, without leverage, and they knew it. But what can we do?" There is a buzzing silence.

"We need to lure them out into the open," says Alice in a quiet, trance-like voice. "We need allies. Witnesses. We need plenty of our own people to come with us, and more to stay behind, ready to spread the word if they should attempt treachery. We will meet them on neutral ground, we will present our case. The Volturi are free to break their own laws, but only behind closed doors. If we can smoke them out they will have no choice but to return her to us, or to pay us restitution with their own blood. But only if we have enough witness that they can be _forced _to comply."

"How are we gonna get 'em out in the open?" asks Jasper. "They don't owe us anything. They hold all the cards."

"Not all the cards," whispers Alice.

"Alice, _no!_" exclaims Jasper, and Jake feels a heavy blanket of foreboding settle around him. He shakes himself, nose to tail.

"Jas, c'mon," says Emmett. "Ease up, will ya?" The doom-and-gloom feeling lessens but does not go away.

"I'm not saying I'm going to join them," says Alice waveringly. "I would never join them, I would die first. But it would get us a meeting, wouldn't it?"

"It might," says Esme thoughtfully. Jasper looks stricken, his eyes darting between his adopted mother and his wife in abject betrayal. "She's right," Esme goes on. "A meeting is all we want. We want them to be forced to own up to what they did. They must do it publicly. We already know that we can't trust a word they say in private."

"They would just surround us," says Jasper desperately. "They would catch us like flies in a honey pot."

"We could avoid that, with luck and foresight," says Esme firmly. "What if we demanded evenly-matched parties on both sides, as a condition of our meeting? Aro wants Alice so badly, he'd agree to just about anything to get his hands on her. I'm sure of it."

"If we had the right allies," says Alice, her voice growing stronger, "we could balance the odds. The Volturi may have the finest Guard in the world, but they are by no means the only vampires with useful skills. And there are those that the Volturi would never even bother asking to join them, but who could help us enormously."

"We can't do this," moans Jasper. "So much could go wrong. They are so powerful."

"That's why no one has stood up to them before," says Carlisle. "Yet many have wished to. They have simply lacked the organization to see it through. This may be the first time in centuries that there has been provable just cause; we may never have another chance, either to get Nary back or to seek retribution for our wrongs. We cannot afford not to act. We will do as Esme says. We will call the Denalis, and everyone else we know. We will assemble as many witnesses as we can. And we will not act without a plan."

Jake regains enough control to force himself out of his phase. He stands there naked and shaking. "I'll talk to the elders," he says. "And Leah. And the rest of the wolves. Maybe some of them will be willing to help."

"Thank you, Jacob," says Carlisle. "Thank you for all that you have done; if it were not for you, we would not now know she is alive and in need of our help." Jake ducks his head curtly. The vampires leave, each of them pulling out a cell phone as they go to make their calls.

"Jacob," says Esme, her voice soft and motherly once more. "Let me fix you something to eat." She turns and walks into the ruined kitchen, then begins rummaging through the doorless fridge for ingredients. Jacob stares at her in disbelief: how can she think of something so prosaic as _eating_ at a time like this? "You need to keep up your strength," she continues in her sweet, pretty alto, chopping lamb into perfect cubes, "so that when we finally pin down these taint-brained shitstains, you can tear their fucking throats out."

* * *

**So...what do you think of these developments? Angry? Relieved? Intrigued? Bored? Let me know. Thanks.**


	5. The East Tower

"Everything will be fine," says Demetri, as comfortingly as he can manage. He is only holding himself together for Nary's sake. He'll let himself fall apart later, when she's out of the woods. "You'll see, darling. Trust me, there will be hell to pay for Dr. Schaal. We will have justice." Nary nods mutely, her beautiful eyes wide as portholes. She is puffy and cried-out. She's done nothing but cry for days. They got back to Volterra yesterday, and Demetri had a meeting at once with Aro. He explained the situation. Aro was wonderfully paternal when he heard of the miscarriage, furious at the doctor who had failed to keep Nary from conceiving, and deeply sympathetic to Demetri's own grief.

Aro is truly a god among vampires.

"Enter," comes the command from within. Demetri supports most of Nary's weight as they walk down the hall toward the dais where Aro, Caius, Renata, Dr. Müller, Chelsea and Corin are gathered. Demetri is relieved that Corin is present; Aro sometimes calls her down from the East Tower where she lives with the Wives, if he needs her to calm a potentially volatile meeting. It will be good for Nary to have some relief.

"I have already heard what has happened from our tracker," says Aro smoothly. All eyes are fixed on Nary. She looks from face to face and her terror seems to grow. Demetri squeezes her shoulder encouragingly. "I would like to hear it from you, Nereid," Aro continues. "So that I may make the most correct possible judgment." A small sob escapes Nary's throat and she doesn't move a step.

"Come on, Nary," whispers Demetri, although of course everyone hears him clearly. She digs her heels in and Demetri ends up half-dragging, half-carrying her to the dais. Poor Nary; this miscarriage has broken her.

"Your hand, my dear," says Aro. Stiffly Nary holds out her palm. Aro takes her hand loosely in his and is still and thoughtful for a moment. "Very well," he says, "That seems to be—_oh_." His eyes narrow and his mouth purses. "My oh my," he says daintily. "We _have_ been a naughty girl, haven't we?" Nary gasps and tries to jerk out of Aro's reach, but she isn't strong enough. Not by half.

"Get your filthy hands off me," she says through gritted teeth. Demetri gasps, and he is not the only one in the room to do so. Few Volturi have the balls to speak to Aro like that; even fewer survive to regret it.

"Nary, please!" cries Demetri. "Milord, forgive her, she is distraught, she doesn't know what she's—"

"Enough," says Aro evenly. Caius leans forward with a smile on his lips, his fingertips pressed together. "Forgiven," says Aro magnanimously. "Forgotten. I understand our little ward more perfectly even than you, Demetri. She is not well. Her diet, combined with, I believe, some unfortunate genetic factors, have contributed to this illness. Losing that poor, innocent, _defenseless_ baby was too much for her, I fear. She must feel it keenly; after all, is it not any loving mother's most passionate wish to protect her baby from harm? How tortured she must feel, knowing that there was nothing she could do to save that sweet infant." Nary begins to struggle in earnest. "Her mind is touched," sighs Aro, the very picture of a concerned father. "Is it not so, Dr. Müller?"

Dr. Müller nods curtly. "She must have quiet, and solitude, and peace," he says.

Corin steps off the dais. Nary begins to scream, louder and louder, struggling with all her strength against Aro's implacable grip. Corin smiles and drapes her arm about Nary's shoulders, and suddenly Nary is unnaturally quiet and still.

"Does that not feel better?" asks Aro, smiling beatifically into Nary's eyes. Nary smiles back, nodding slowly.

"Thank you, milord," she says serenely. "Much better."

"Milord, is this really necessary?" asks Demetri. Having Corin take the edge off of Nary's pain is one thing, but it seems they've given her the whole treatment. She looks like the last week didn't even happen. Like the last _year_ didn't happen. How can this be right?

Aro turns to him and smiles. "She has been through a most traumatic biological procedure, my child. Do not begrudge her a chance to heal. This is the first step along an arduous but rewarding path. Nereid, you must have a good, wholesome meal before another minute has passed. That will be vital to the full recovery of your mind and spirits."

"Yes, milord," says Nary. Alec enters the room, Dr. Schaal by his side.

"Doctor!" Aro greets him. "Perhaps you can cast your professional eye over our patient?"

"Gladly," says Dr. Schaal, hurrying forward. He feels Nary's glands, takes her pulse. Demetri hears the saliva pooling in Nary's mouth. She looks at Aro, who smiles down at her.

"Thank you for everything you've done for me, Doctor," she says earnestly. Dr. Schaal blushes and fumbles with his wire-rimmed glasses.

"It was nothing, my dear," he says in his thick German accent. "Happy to do it."

Nary slowly enfolds him in her arms. Dr. Schaal looks first surprised and then pleased as he returns her hug.

Demetri already knows what's coming. Hasn't he seen it a million times?

Nary turns her head and sinks her incisors into the doctor's carotid. Before he can scream, she has tightened her fingers expertly around his windpipe. His eyes bulge and his face whitens as all the blood leaves it. Not a drop is spilled.

When Nary is done, Corin leads her away, docile as a child. Demetri watches her vanish into the doorway that leads up to the East Tower and then turns back to Aro with a worried frown between his eyebrows. This is not okay. He doesn't know why, but this is _not okay_.

"You can visit her as soon as she is settled," says Aro generously. From behind the ancient, Chelsea winks at Demetri and he feels suddenly positive that Aro knows best. Aro _always_ knows best.

"Thank you, milord," he says gratefully. "I will look forward to it."

* * *

Nary is floating in an icy ocean, watching a pyre that bobs not ten feet from her face. There is a beautiful brown-haired pale vampire keeping her balance on the boat, dancing with a chocolate-skinned female.

Dancing?

No. Fighting.

The dark one loses her arm and then her head in quick succession, although the pale one only manages to burn the arm before a loose spark ignites a wound in her side, and she goes nova.

* * *

Nary wakes up screaming. Immediately Corin is by her side, stroking her hair and making soft hushing noises. Nary feels her cares slipping away. Her sobs die down almost instantly.

"Good morning, little one," says Corin. "You slept a long time."

"I was very tired," admits Nary. She looks around. She is in an emperor-sized bed in a huge circular room that has eight large lead-paned windows spaced equilaterally around the deep stone walls. Right now all eight windows are thrown open, letting in sweet fresh Tuscan air. The ceiling is high and vaulted; from the view out the window and the shape of the ceiling, Nary would guess she is in the East Tower's highest room. Neat-o! She bounds over to one of the windows and gazes out, eager to become acquainted with her new home.

This tower is very secure, built to exact details by vampire craftsmen under the direction of vampire engineers. It sits on the highest point of ground in the whole town of Volterra, and the land drops off sharply on three sides, which is why the views are so spectacular, looking out over the town and into the wilderness beyond. Around all Volterra runs a wall, too high for even a vampire to jump and polished to such perfect smoothness that not even a vampire could find a toehold in it; around the vampire district runs another wall, also too high to jump or climb. If Nary were to look out almost any window of the palace, she would catch a glimpse of the interior walled district that the vampires control, which they call Volterra Fulgida; beyond that, the city proper of Volterra, where unsuspecting humans live their lives. When she lived down there, Nary didn't often leave the vampire part of town, with its museums and workshops and libraries to keep her amused; but it was nice to know she could visit Volterra proper if she wanted to.

Now she can't even see it, because the East Tower faces away from Volterra proper, overlooking only the vampire district. That's all right, though; she has a nice view of the dome of the Biblioteca. The wall, the tower, the high rise of land on which it is all situated—everything combined makes this part of Volterra impossible to storm from the outside. No one, not even a vampire, could climb up here, and the walls are so thick that it would take even a vampire so long to dismantle them that someone would notice before the job was done. Because the East Tower is directly exposed only to Fulgida, it is an easy matter for Guards to keep an eye on it at all times. Nary is as safe and cozy as a nightingale in a cage.

Sharp spears of gold-plated titanium are embedded in the top of the retaining wall several stories below Nary's window. They glow prettily in the midday sun. Nary tilts her head and smiles at the shiny, shiny points.

She crosses to the opposite side of the room and looks out of that window onto the red-tiled roofs of the Palazzo Eterno. Beyond that, she can hear but not see the marketplace buzz of Volterra proper.

"You like?" asks Corin with a smile.

"Oh, very much," says Nary.

"Would you like me to help you dress before we go down to see the others?" asks Corin.

"Yes, thank you," says Nary. She can see that she needs a bath, her hair needs combing, and she still smells like fear-sweat. What on earth was she ever afraid of? This will be lovely, she is sure of it. Look at what a nice room they gave her! And it will be pleasant to get to know the wives better. Corin leads her behind an elegantly carved screen to a sizeable tub steaming with scented water. She helps Nary into the tub and washes away all of her previous worries.

When they finish, Corin leads Nary to an armoire and helps her pick out a pretty silk day dress and a pair of soft leather house slippers. They don't speak much; why break this peaceful silence?

Soon Nary is clean, dressed, brushed and perfumed. She feels a million times better. No, a billion!

"That's a pretty bauble," says Corin, looking at Nary's sea-glass necklace. "Where did you get it?"

"A friend gave it to me," says Nary. "When I was little. It sure does look pretty when it catches the light, doesn't it?" She holds it up to the window and turns it from side to side, admiring.

"Nothing like a new day to give you a little perspective, is there?" asks Corin with a wink. Nary giggles. "Let's go down," says Corin, leading the way down a broad curving staircase.

They bypass two floors and stop at a third, entering through a heavy oak door into a comfortably furnished parlor where two female vampires sit, needlework cascading over their laps. They look up at Nary's entrance and stand as one, their faces blossoming into warm smiles. Nary smiles back at the wives. She can't help it. Everyone is just so happy.

"Nereid, dear," says Sulpicia, hurrying over and taking Nary's hand. Her silky light-brown hair glints in the sunlight from the eight windows. Her skin, lacking the characteristic sparkle of a more active vampire, looks almost human. "We are so glad you've come to stay. We can truly get acquainted at last!"

"Thank you," says Nary, blushing.

"What a sweet girl," says Athenodora, looking up into Nary's pink face. "I'm sure we're going to just adore living together. Do you like your room? We gave you the room at the top, because it has the finest view of the stars at night. We do so want you to be happy with us."

"My room is charming," says Nary. "I had no idea there were so many apartments in the East Tower."

"Oh yes," laughs Athenodora. "There are ten floors. We need the space, you see. Otherwise it gets a bit cramped after a while."

"You'll meet the others soon," assures Sulpicia. Her opaque red eyes shine with excitement.

"Others?" says Nary. "I thought it was only you three."

The two wives and Corin break off in a peal of laughter, but it is mirthful instead of mocking.

"Of course you would think that!" chortles Sulpicia, her delicate teenage face beaming. "The East Tower is the best-kept secret in all of Volterra!"

"No—the world!" corrects Athenodora.

Nary smiles happily. What delightful ladies! This will be _wonderful_.

* * *

**I'm sorry for all the confusing establishing paragraphs about the East Tower. I reeeeally want to just draw you a map, but obviously this site doesn't have a visual component. Actually, I've illustrated a lot of this story, and I can't even show you what Nary and Demetri and Jake look like or anything. It sucks. But if you're like, really confused about how Volterra is set up, let me know and I'll try to clarify. That's assuming anyone cares.**

**Anyway, thanks for your reviews, guys! Every single one means a lot to me. I hope you enjoy!**


	6. Gathering

"So you've basically just invited a crap ton of vampires to our backyard," says Quil angrily.

"That's an oversimplification," chides Sue.

"Don't worry about the Cullens' friends," says Jake. "They aren't coming close. They won't even enter Forks. I promise."

"I'm sorry, Jake, but you really should have brought it up with us first," says Quil, raking a hand through the black hair that is only just beginning to fill in, now he's stopped phasing.

"He brought it up with the Council," points out Sam. Sue and Billy nod in agreement. "Since there were no longer any wolves phasing regularly, he came to us first, which was the right thing to do."

"And you were just _okay_ with this?"

"Hell no!" exclaims Sam. "This sucks. But it also isn't really avoidable. If Ness—_Nary _manages to escape, this is the first place she'll come. And if she comes here, chances are the leeches will follow. Isn't it better that we have some advance warning? This is what we exist for!"

"Why does she have to come here?" asks Quil plaintively, looking out the kitchen window to where Claire is sitting on the porch railing and chomping on an apple. Jake can feel the longing radiating out from Quil. And the fear.

"You don't mean that," says Leah. "Think about what you're saying, man! She's Jake's imprint, for god's sake. Of _course_ she should come here. Of _course_ we'll hide her. And if it comes down to it, of _course_ we'll fight for her. We would do the same for Claire and you know it. We would do it for any imprint."

"You're right," sighs Quil. "I'm sorry. It's just..." Jake and Leah look at him expectantly. Sam already seems to know what he's about to say and looks at his feet. "It's just that we haven't really been a pack in a long time. I was the last one still phasing, and I only did it for _her_." His eyes drift back to the window. Now Claire is spitting apple seeds at a squirrell in the yard. She has a lap full of neglected college applications.

"Well, we'll just have to get back into it," says Sam. "It won't be for long. We just need to be prepared, that's all. In case...in case they show up out of the blue one of these days. We shouldn't have let ourselves get so careless, anyway. We all gave up phasing too soon. Me included."

"I don't think that's true," says Paul, "I don't want to be a dick, but...I mean, I can't just go back to phasing all the time. Rachel's not gonna stop getting older, you know. Or Emily. Or Claire. We weren't _meant_ to go on doing this stuff. Isn't that what the imprinting was for?"

"Unless we're prepared for the worst," says Jake, "we won't have a _chance_ to go on doing this stuff. C'mon, guys, I'm not asking you to storm Italy. I'm just asking you to do your damn jobs."

"You're one to talk," says Quil angrily. "I don't remember seeing _you_ patrolling these last fifteen years."

"You really want to go down that road?" asks Jake pointedly. "How many leeches did you waste after I left? Huh?" Quil is silent. "Well, I'm afraid I can't tell you how many I've killed, because I lost count after the first fifty. Throw in the ones Leah nabbed...the ones we took down together...the ones we took down with the Cullens... We're the only ones who are really ready for this possibility. We're just doing the decent thing, giving you a chance to get ready too. The two of us alone won't be able to defend the tribe against all the Volturi, if they decide to come here. And trust me, the Cullens _are _going to find a way to get Nary back. And when they do, the Volturi aren't going to let her go quietly. Why don't you just accept this for what it is: a shitty situation we can't avoid. Maybe if we're ready for it, we'll all make it through. Leah and I are here; we've been doing this for a long time now, we're good at it. I'm not asking you to put Claire in danger. Or Rachel, or Emily, or Kim, or anyone else. I'm just saying don't be stupid. This is your fair warning. What are you gonna do with it?"

"Yeah," sighs Quil. "I guess we're back on duty. Damn it."

"Damn it to hell," agrees Paul somberly.

* * *

Nary is swimming through a sea of blood. All she can hear is the low burble of a last breath leaving a blood-filled throat, again and again and again. There are body parts bobbing against her, swept along by the bloody tide. There is a red wolf swimming a few yards away; is he red from blood or is he red from being Jake?

"Why did you order me not to come for you?" the wolf whines, turning his head to her. Nary screams, because one half of his face is burned away; she can smell the melted fat and see the charred bone. He is missing his right foreleg.

"I had to!" sobs Nary, her tears dripping redly into the red, red ocean. "They'd kill you if they saw you again."

"How are you going to get away?" he asks.

"I don't think I can!" she shouts, but the louder she shouts the further he drifts, until he is out of sight altogether. There doesn't seem to be any point trying to stay afloat all alone out here, and so she doesn't.

* * *

Nary wakes, gasping for breath. After a moment, she feels the now-familiar sensation of all her anxieties drifting away. She can remember her dream; she just doesn't care enough to worry about it.

Corin knocks on her door and opens it without waiting for an answer. "I heard you gasp," she explains with a smile. "I thought I'd go ahead and calm you from downstairs. I can do it from a little distance, you know, once I've gotten used to a person."

"You don't try to calm my dreams?" asks Nary, stretching luxuriantly and leaning back on her silken pillows.

"Oh, I certainly try," says Corin, "but you know dreams are a direct line to the subconscious. I'm afraid I can't touch you there."

"Huh," says Nary unconcernedly. She looks out the window. It's another beautiful day. Splendid!

"Don't worry, love," says Corin, sitting beside Nary on the bed and patting her hand maternally. "You've been waking up rather loudly these last few days. Sobbing and screaming and I don't know what! As soon as I hear that, I send you a nice little shot of happiness. And I'm sure that as soon as you get used to things, your nightmares will cease. Then you'll be happy all the time, as we are!"

"Oh, I do hope so!" says Nary enthusiastically.

"You've been here a whole entire week," says Corin briskly, throwing open the doors of the armoire and sifting through the rows of expensive dresses. "What do you say to a little mixer?"

"What do you mean?" asks Nary curiously.

"I mean that maybe it's about time for you to meet the other tenants of the East Tower, silly goose!"

"Oh, may I?" exclaims Nary, clapping her hands delightedly.

Corin leads her to a room she hasn't seen yet, about halfway down the tower. Athenodora and Sulpicia are already there with their ever-present needlework. They smile at her when she comes in and offer her a seat.

"Is she meeting them today?" asks Athenodora. Corin beams in answer. She leaves the room and comes back a moment later.

"Nereid," she says proudly, "I'd like you to meet our sisters, Yejide and Maala." She leads two women into the room. They gaze about vacuously, their eyes wide and their jaws slack. Maala is plump and olive-skinned, with abundant wavy black hair and a long, glorious nose. Yejide is tall and wiry with skin the color of a roasted coffee bean and hair plaited into an elaborate topiary on her head.

Nary stares. She stares harder. What is so odd about Yejide? She seems strangely lopsided.

Then she sees it: Yejide is missing her right arm.

A boat is burning not ten feet from Nary's face. Two beautiful women are dancing together.

Dancing?

Fighting.

One of them is small and pale, with brown hair. The other is dark, tall, slender. The other one is Yejide.

"Oopsie-daisy!" sings one of the wives, Nary doesn't know who. The floor is swooping toward her fast, but Corin catches her before it strikes.

"Careful, love!" giggles Corin, and Nary feels a powerful wave of contentment sweeping away all her cares. She rights herself and curtseys politely to Yejide and Maala, who both bow clumsily back. Yejide's left hand wraps around the front of her body to finger the smooth scarred space at her shoulder where her right arm should be. A thin line like a piano wire wraps around her throat, a scar from when someone tore off her head but didn't finish the job.

"Does it hurt?" asks Nary sympathetically. Yejide smiles broadly and nods, then shakes her head, then nods again. Maala clucks her tongue. A bead of venomous drool glistens on her chin.

"Their brains were addled before they were changed," whispers Sulpicia confidentially. "But they're quite gentle! Have no fear."

"All right," says Nary peaceably, sitting down beside Athenodora and picking up a length of white linen. Yejide sits beside Nary and stares blankly at what she's doing with the needle, then puts her hands up and begins to comb them through Nary's lustrous curls. In a back compartment of her mind, Nary knows that this is the woman who murdered her mother and father, that she saw it happen and has relived it in dreams ever since. This should be a big deal. This should be important. But her consciousness keeps sliding right off of that. Why bother with unpleasant things?

Nary smiles sleepily and drops her embroidery, leaning into Yejide's gentle touch.

* * *

"What stinks in here?" asks a snide voice.

"Yeah, hi," says Jake. It goes badly against the grain for him not to phase and dispatch the four vampires standing around the living room of the gigantic house the Cullens recently bought near Montesano. Supposedly all the visiting leeches have promised not to hunt within a three-hundred mile radius. Like you can trust the word of a leech.

"So you're the shape-shifter, yeah?" says the boyish-looking one.

"Jake," says Jake, not offering to shake hands or, in fact, stand closer than ten paces away. "You?"

"Benjamin," says the leech. "My mate Tia. And these are my parents, Amun and Kebi." The other three incline their heads with varying degrees of distaste on their faces.

"Right," says Jake. "Well, fine. See you around." He only came to meet whoever had showed up and bring a report back to the packs, which are getting stronger by the day. He turns to leave.

"You loved the little girl?" Underneath the offensively cavalier tone is a whiff of sympathy—and curiosity. Jake turns around.

"Yeah," says Jake. "She was amazing. Everyone loved her."

"But you loved her extra."

Jake sighs. "Yes," he says. "I love her extra."

"You love her still?" asks the leech—okay, _Benjamin_—in surprise. "But you hate our kind in general, yes?"

"Right on the first try," agrees Jake. "She's not like you..._people_."

"How do you know that? I thought she ate humans just like everyone else. That is what the doctor's son told me, anyway. Is it not the drinking of humans you find so abhorrent?"

"That's part of it," says Jake with an unpleasant grimace. "We have plenty of other reasons to hate you, too." The leeches shift and stare at him impassively. He probably shouldn't antagonize them if he's hoping they'll put their lives on the line for Nary. Besides, if Garrett could go on the wagon, maybe some of these freakazoids will, too. "She gave up humans," he says with a sigh. "She never knew there was another way, they raised her to think eating people was normal. She grew a conscience on her own."

"And that's why you love her."

"That's part of it," says Jake again. He turns and leaves, almost bumping into Kate and Garrett. For them at least he can spare a real smile—well, okay, not a real smile. But his scowl does drop a few notches.

"There's a group coming from Brazil," says Kate. "Apparently they have a hybrid of their own."

"What? _Seriously?_"

"That's what Alice said when I talked to her on the phone just now. A male. He's coming up with his aunt and the Amazon coven. Maybe he'll have some ideas we haven't thought of."

"God, I hope so," sighs Jake. "I'm fresh out of ideas."

* * *

"Milord," says Demetri deferentially. "May I be honored with your attention a moment?"

"Yes, Demetri," says Aro, looking up from his desk full of papers. "Is aught amiss?"

"Perhaps, perhaps not," says Demetri. He extends his hand for Aro to take, and feels all his recent thoughts rushing over into the ancient's mind.

"Oh, my," says Aro. "The Denalis are visiting their old friends, the Olympic coven."

"I thought nothing of it when I noticed it at first," says Demetri, "but now others are joining them. I sense that my sire and his mate have joined them as well. That was what called my attention to it in the first place; I am still very deeply attuned to Amun's psychic presence. The two Romanian ancients are traveling toward them as we speak. And there is always a chance that others are visiting them; unless they are vampires I have met, I would not know their strands. The Cullens are unusually mobile, some of them travelling far from the coven. And several of the Denalis are more active than usual as well." He pauses. "Should I worry, milord?"

"Not yet," says Aro. "But keep me apprised of any developments."

* * *

Jake is holding himself back to an easy loping seventy-five miles per hour, and the others _still_ can't keep up. This is ridiculous. They should be able to do this stuff. He can hear them all in his brain, panting and wheezing around the rez.

_Anything good on your end?_ he thinks at Leah. It seems their curious little pack-of-one alpha statuses were more accurate than they thought; as soon as the retired wolves started phasing again, they automatically fell in line under Leah and Jake. Jake finally got roped into being an alpha after _sixteen years_ of successfully avoiding it. Oh, well. Not much he can do about it now. And anyway, isn't this all for Nary?

_How in God's name did Seth wind up in your pack and I got stuck with Sam? This sucks goat tits. He won't stop thinking about Emily. I really fucking hate imprints._

_Hey,_ thinks Jake. _I'm just leading whoever will obey my alpha voice. If it worked on Sam, I'd take him off your hands, seriously. But you should stop complaining, you only got stuck with one imprint. I have Jared and Paul and Quil. And anyway, I thought you were over all the drama._

_I am,_ she retorts. _But imprints are still annoying. No offence._

_None...taken?_

_But seriously. How did Sam weasel his way out of this? If he were in charge I could just be in your pack and keep an eye on Seth._ Jake can hear the yearning in her thoughts; she _really_ wants to be looking after her brother.

_He hasn't been an alpha in forever,_ thinks Jake. _You really think he'd do a better job than you at this point? You're the only one who still knows what to do, other than me._

_Yeah, yeah,_ grumbles Leah. _I don't understand why we even have two packs. One used to be enough._

_Your guess is as good as mine,_ thinks Jake. _Feel the magic._

_Hey, Jake?_ thinks Quil. _I hate to be that guy, but...are we planning on stopping like, at all today? I'm hungry._

Jake can hear it in everyone's collective mind, unfortunately: they'd forgotten what it feels like to be famished all the time. Quil isn't the only one shooting sharp hunger pangs straight into Jake's subconscious.

_Jared and Seth,_ he thinks, _go grab a meal and some rest. I want you back out here in six hours. _Grumble grumble, whine whine whine.

_How am I supposed to afford all this food?_ thinks Jared. _You made me take a leave of absence from work._

_I remind you that Esme has been spending all her time cooking obscene amounts of food for all of us,_ thinks Jake, _pro bono and fresh off the farm. I at least intend to take her up on that. _

_Gross_, remarks Quil. _And how come I have to keep patrolling and they don't?_

_Because you complained first._

Grumble, grumble. Whine whine whine.

* * *

"Would you like to see us ring the changes?" Nary asks her husband excitedly. Demetri smiles and kisses her cheek.

"That would be nice," he says. He follows her down the stairs from her room, where they've just been having the most boring intercourse of all time. God, he hopes Aro decides she's healthy soon. All this contentment is doing their sex life no favors.

"Good afternoon, Demetri," says Sulpicia. "Here to watch us ring the changes?"

"Apparently," he says.

"Would you care to join in?"

"Thank you, but I still don't know what ringing the changes actually _is_," he laughs. "I'll just watch, this time."

Nary, Sulpicia and Athenodora stand equidistant from each other. This room has hundreds of bells hanging in each of the hundreds of windows that honeycomb the walls. The deep unglazed window recesses are cleverly shaped to magnify the sound as it leaves the tower. The bells are all different sizes, different shapes, made of different materials, from the enormous brass one in the south window all the way down to thumb-sized bells of brightly-sparkling crystal. These are the bells that ring matins, prime, terce, sext, nones, vespers, and compline. It's vespers now. Demetri has been here for centuries and even he had no idea it was the wives that rang these bells every day. And now Nary, evidently.

Athenodora starts with a simple chiming tune in a middle key. Soon, Sulpicia joins in, dashing around the tower to add deep bass notes with the largest bells. Then Nary adds cascades of tinkling high notes. All of it is improvised, an organic, evolving thing that pulsates from phrase to phrase within a subtle, constant leitmotif. It's incredibly beautiful and totally captivating and a devastating waste of Nary's brilliant mind.

"Like it?" she asks three minutes later when the last echoes have died down. Demetri smiles and nods. He can't trust himself to speak but she doesn't apparently expect him to.

"I started a new sampler," she goes on, taking him by the hand and skipping toward the door. She drags him down to the parlor where the wives seem to spend most of their time. She opens a sewing basket and holds up a square of fine linen. It's embroidered with silken daisies.

"Pretty," he comments. Nary beams. She looks down fondly at the sampler and strokes it gently with her fingers. "Nary," says Demetri hesitantly. "Are you...are you truly happy up here? You're so...far away."

"Of course I'm happy, 'Metri!" she says brightly. "Why shouldn't I be?"

_Because less than a month ago you had a miscarriage that tore your mind apart,_ thinks Demetri. _Because before that you had to carry me for days over the tundra to escape a homicidal shape-shifter from your childhood. Because just a week ago you were forced to eat your pediatrician. Because you never leave this tower. Because we only see each other a couple times a week. Because Corin's effectively killed your interest in anything interesting. Because you have so little to do that you have to invent meaningless busywork. Because being up here squanders everything that makes you you._

"No reason," he says.

* * *

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	7. Personal History

Nary is fashioning a pair of wings.

"Hand me those candles," she says to Jake. "I'll melt them down for glue."

"Here ya go," he says cheerfully, tossing her a few saponified mummies. She holds them over the fire and they begin to melt into shiny soap-bubble droplets.

"Need my feathers?" Jake asks.

"Yes, please," she says. Jake stretches out his long forepaws, yawning hugely with his razor-sharp teeth, and then goes into a full-body shiver. Russet-colored feathers fly in all directions. Nary leaps through the air, catching them one by one.

"You're gonna have to leave soon if you're gonna leave at all," says Jake. "Don't you want to get out of here?"

Nary looks out of one of the hundreds of windows in the big round room. "I don't know how," she says plaintively. "They don't intend me to ever leave, I think. Why else would they let me see the crazies, if they thought I might ever leave here to tell tales? It's obvious. As soon as I wake up, Corin is going to make me forget I ever wanted to leave. I won't care anymore. What do I do?"

"When you escape," says Jake, turning a red feather over and over in his big human hands, "you come straight to me. You know where to find me. I'll keep you safe."

"But how do I escape?" she asks, a sob building in her throat. "What do I do?"

"You'll have to figure it out yourself," he says apologetically. "But I know you'll find a way."

"I can't," whimpers Nary. "I can't, I can't, I can't..."

She wakes up choking on tears, and immediately feels her breath easing. She looks out the window. She hears low voices murmuring a few floors below. Somewhere down there, Corin heard her wake up and sent her a shot of contentment.

That was nice of her. Nary settles into her pillows and smiles at the morning.

Corin's ability to instill contentment can extend up to five floors in either direction; beyond that, the further one gets from her the less effect her power has. This means that if she stays on the tower's central floor—which is, naturally, her own suite—her gift can simultaneously reach all the way up to Nary's room at the top and all the way down to the sitting room at the bottom, which is the furthest into the tower that Chelsea and Afton ever venture. Caius and Aro of course have the run of the place, but Aro rarely visits Sulpicia in the tower, preferring instead to invite her into his own quarters further from Corin's sphere of influence. Yejide and Maala occupy the floor beneath the bells. Athenodora and Sulpicia share a floor by their own choice, and Nary can always tell when Caius has invaded because Sulpicia tags along after Nary instead, giving her sister and brother-in-law some privacy.

"You don't like to be alone, do you?" asks Nary on one such occasion. Athenodora and Caius are having a conjugal visit down in the wives' room. Gross.

"No," says Sulpicia. "I was an orphan by the time Aro met me." She twists a strand of hair around her translucent, aged-ivory finger and stares out the window. "I hated being alone then, too. It was why I was so willing to be changed, so I could be sure of having someone with me forever. It was better, then. For a while, at least."

"What happened?" asks Nary gently. Corin is down in the sitting room with Chelsea and Afton right now, and Sulpicia is visiting Nary in her bedroom. It is the farthest Nary is able to get from Corin, and she feels raw and exposed with only a thin veneer of Corin's influence to protect her from reality. Nary and Sulpicia are clinging together to stave off the feeling of vulnerability Corin's distance has caused. They won't last long; soon they will probably give up and move closer to Corin to ease this uncomfortable ache. But not yet. They're testing themselves, first.

"Aro didn't tell me about Caius and Marcus until after I was changed," says Sulpicia. "I thought it would be just the two of us. I didn't think much of Caius, I'll admit. But I liked Marcus. He was happy then. He had Didyme." She sighs. Nary has heard of Didyme, but just barely. She was Aro's human sister, transformed by him as soon as he'd learned sufficient control.

"Tell me about her?" she asks.

"Oh, Didyme was lovely, she really was," says Sulpicia. "She was the glue that held us all together. I loved Athenodora as well. They were my first real family. The three of us were closer even than we were to our mates. When Didyme died..." she trails off with a catch in her throat.

"She made you happy," says Nary gently. "That was her power. Wasn't it?"

"That's right," assents Sulpicia. "True happiness. Joy, even. Oh, I adore Corin of course, but this feeling is so different from true joy. It is good, in its own way; I would rather have Corin than not have her, and of course I would love her even without her gift. She is one of my dearest friends, as close as a sister. But Didyme was such a joy to be around. The sun and moon shone out of her eyes. Did you know that she forewent human blood?"

"She did?" asks Nary in surprise. She can hardly imagine Aro allowing someone in his coven to skip human blood. But then, she was his sister, not his subordinate. And he was so much younger then.

"Marcus would go spells without it, as well, to please her. Maybe in time he would have given it up altogether, who knows? You see, Didyme always felt happiest, most at ease, when everyone around her was happy. Drinking humans, hearing their distress, it distressed her as well. It caused her pain and blighted her joy. She learned that if she drank the blood of animals instead, she was unhurt by her victims' suffering. The payoff was more than worth the price—to her, anyway."

"Oh, my," says Nary quietly. She used to give up human blood. Why did she do that? Pretty much the same reason Didyme did, if Sulpicia is to be believed. She drinks humans now, though, Corin keeps them from being upset. Keeps _her_ from being upset.

"We called her our 'Golden Quince'," says Sulpicia nostalgically. "For the three golden fruits that enchanted Atalanta." Nary knows all about this story; Demetri has told it to her often and it is one of her favorites. "She had golden eyes and she enchanted everyone she met," says Sulpicia.

"Golden eyes?" asks Nary, surprised. "I didn't know vampires could change their eye color."

"Oh, yes," says Sulpicia comfortably. "It's quite possible to achieve an eye color anywhere from red to black to butter yellow. I've even heard of a coven that drank the blood of sharks! Supposedly they had eyes of a silvery pearl-grey color, but I've never seen it. If they ever existed, they're long-dead now." They shudder in unison, thinking about it. "The eyes turn yellow only if you drink nothing but animal blood for a long time. Marcus only ever achieved a sort of sunset-orange, though, because he only drank animals about half the time. Needless to say, he is back to humans now."

"But that's so...I never knew some vampires drank animals!" Nary bursts out. She feels a faint bump in her mood; Corin must have heard her disquiet and adjusted it as best she could from afar. "Demetri and Aro always told me it wasn't good for you," she goes on more congenially. "And now I find out Aro's own sister did it. How odd!"

"Oh, yes," says Sulpicia, smoothing down a microscopic loose thread on Nary's silk bedspread. "Yes, there are others. At least two covens that I know of drink animal blood exclusively. Oh, I don't get out much, I haven't actually met them. But I did meet the leader of one of them, because he lived with us a few centuries back. Carlisle Cullen, his name was. He was a doctor. Still is, as far as I know. He had golden eyes too, just like Didyme. He sired a coven and taught them all to abstain from humans. It sounds tedious to me, but he seemed jolly enough when I knew him."

There is a great deal to think about. Never in a million years would Nary have guessed that there were full vampires out there who drank animal blood like her. She and Sulpicia sit on her bed in silence, gazing out the windows at the sun-baked Tuscan sky.

* * *

Demetri sits politely with Nary, Chelsea, Caius, Corin and the wives in the bottom-most room in the East Tower. He's always known that Aro uses Corin to keep Chelsea too happy to leave, but until recently he didn't realize just what that meant. The room is so saturated with good feeling that nobody is even talking. He's seen people like this before, not vampires but humans, drugged out on wine spiked with mandrake and poppy at bacchanalia in Crete.

Later, when he has kissed his wife goodbye and returned to the suite he now occupies alone, he worries. He _couldn't_ worry before, and that is what worries him. Chelsea disappears into the East Tower nearly every day for at least a few hours, usually with Caius and Afton in tow. Of course, Chelsea's been using Corin for thousands of years. She'll never be able to leave; she is paranoid and easily distracted when she goes too long without seeing Corin. So does Caius, which is why Caius and Chelsea so rarely leave Volterra.

Is that to be Nary's fate? Does she even want to leave this place? Every visit to her leaves Demetri more anxious than the last. Aro has given him to believe this is all in service of her ultimate recovery, but she's not getting better at all, she's merely being kept under sedation. Is there nothing that Demetri can say which will work where Corin has failed? He is her husband, for pity's sake. He knows her better than any person on earth; there must be something he can think of to bring her back.

There is one thing that might work, he realizes. One thing that might enrage her so much it will wake her from this cursed dream. The only problem is, her rage would entirely aimed at him if he did what he is now considering.

Demetri swallows hard, throws open the door, and strides out of his suite toward the Palazzo's entrance. He needs air. He'll go mad if he doesn't get air.

He could tell her where she came from. He could tell her what he's done. Until she asked him pointe-blank about her past, he never considered that he was doing her a wrong by withholding what he knew. He was following Aro's orders, nothing more.

But she wouldn't have asked if she didn't care, would she? Dodging half-hearted questions from a contented, busy Nary is not at all the same as lying to her face when he can plainly see how much she desires the truth. He should not have lied to her. Even if he had to, even if Aro demanded it, he should not have done it. There was nothing he could have done that would have been safe, he now sees. And if he righted this wrong? If he told her the truth?

She would hate him so much that even Corin wouldn't be able to calm her. She was wounded when they brought her to the East Tower. She was grieving, and grief made her vulnerable. Wrath might save her.

Demetri pushes his way through the heavy cedar doors and into the dusk of Volterra Fulgida. He needs to be moving, he can't stay here where there is no room to think. He will go for a drive.

He has gone halfway down the broad avenue that leads to the garages when he meets Chelsea, returning from the Biblioteca. He nods curtly, but she stops and takes his hand before he can go on.

"Are you quite well, Demetri?" she asks him, her head tilted to one side in concern. "You seem all...torn up. As if you're being...pulled." Her voice slips and slides in cadence, like she is trying to hold two conversations at once. Her eyes dart from side to side, never settling on Demetri for long. He can tell from her psychic strand that she's been traveling with Marcus, and so her behavior doesn't surprise him. She is clearly feeling fragile after her time away from Corin.

"I'm very well," says Demetri, forcing his lips into a smile. "Thank you. I thought I would go for an evening drive."

"Yes," she says vaguely. "Here, I'll just tidy you up before you go. Have fun." She strokes the back of his hand once and goes on toward the Palazzo. Demetri takes one step toward the garage and then pauses. He isn't being very reasonable, really. Why is he so worried about Nary? Honestly, he is acting almost as if he didn't trust _Aro_, of all people. Demetri could laugh at the absurdity of it. Aro always knows best.

Nary's only been exposed to Corin for a month. She is in no danger of turning into Chelsea. Soon Aro will pronounce her recovered from her mental breakdown and she will be able to return to her husband and her life. There is no reason to worry. It's not as if Aro intends to keep her up there forever. Aro is the very best of men, the only father Demetri wants or needs. Thank goodness he talked to Chelsea before he did something foolish. Aro would not have been happy if Demetri had forgotten his place. And it would break Demetri's heart to cause his lord and master unhappiness.

He turns on his heel and, whistling a little tune, follows Chelsea back into the Palazzo.

* * *

"Tell me about Didyme?" Nary asks Athenodora and Sulpicia. She is seated by the largest window in the sitting-room, with an unread book in her lap. She doesn't feel like reading right now. Talking will be much pleasanter. And she is passionately curious about the mystery-woman whose memory haunts this tower.

"Oh, she was a love," says Athenodora. "Caius and I met her when we met Aro and Marcus. She and Marcus weren't mated yet, but everyone could tell it was only a matter of time."

"What was she like?" asks Nary. "Other than happy, I mean."

"Well, when she was alive she worked as a _rineja_ at the palace at Pylos," says Sulpicia. "A weaver of linen. A true artist. We do needlework up here, and we knit lace and things, and it's all very fine, but...well, if Didyme were still alive you would see what I mean. She had a gift."

"And when she was changed," says Sulpicia, "she became even more proficient. Her vision and artistry were without equal."

"We have some of her things," says Sulpicia suddenly. "Would you like to see?"

"Oh, yes, please!" says Nary. Sulpicia vanishes from the room and comes back a moment later with a hefty trunk in her arms. She places it gingerly on the low oak table and unlocks the lid.

"See?" says Sulpicia, lifting a square of ancient linen from the top of the trunk. "It's very delicate, but we've kept it carefully all these years. I'm afraid I can't let you touch it, though, dear. Your hands have oils in them that would degrade the fabric. Only vampire hands are clean enough."

"That's all right," says Nary, leaning over to peer closely at the fabric. "I'll just look."

The swath is about two feet by two feet, stained tea-brown with age. But underneath the brown she can still make out that it once had a pattern of blue and red threads cleverly intertwined into a complicated key motif, with small yellow flowers dotted at intervals. She can see the texture of the thing, how thin and delicate the threads are, how even and smooth the warp and weft.

"Were the flowers embroidered?" she asks, looking up.

"No," says Athenodora. "All woven."

"But it's so detailed," Nary says. "I can't imagine weaving something like this. I mean, I suppose machines can today, but I've never seen woven fabric with such texture. It's perfect!"

"Yes," says Sulpicia with a sad smile, tucking the fabric away. "It is perfect. It is almost all we have left of her."

"Why did you not keep more?" asks Nary. "To remember her by?"

"We would have," admits Sulpicia. "But Aro burned most of it."

"_What?_" bursts out Nary. She feels Corin's power calming her down from a few floors away. "Why did he do that?" she asks more quietly.

"He felt terribly guilty," says Sulpicia. "And he missed her. She was his sister in life and in immortality. Few vampires have so close a connection to another who is not their mate."

"Why did he feel guilty?" asks Nary.

Sulpicia shrugs. "Perhaps he felt he should have protected her better," she says. "He was with her when she died, you know. They were set upon by a group from a rival coven. We avenged her death tenfold; we razed their coven to the ground and salted the ashes. But nothing can bring her back. Aro has never recovered from it."

"Marcus even less so," says Athenodora. "He would have killed himself right away, but Aro prevented him. And then we found Chelsea, and she persuaded Marcus to remain with his family. We love him, even if we cannot make him happy as _she_ could."

"And the worst of it," says Sulpicia, "is that Didyme and Marcus were on the verge of setting out together, to start their own family. They were so excited. It was the last time Marcus was ever excited about anything."

* * *

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	8. Revelations, Like Anyone Cares

"So you're the other hybrid, huh?" says Jake, eyeing the brown-skinned, black-haired boy with interest. Wait, no, not boy. The kid may look like he's barely old enough to buy himself booze, but supposedly he's a hundred and seventy years old, plenty old enough to look down on Jake if he were so inclined, which apparently he's not. He looks crazy-human next to all these leeches. He shifts his weight and breathes naturally and blinks like a normal person. He's obviously a hybrid, though: he's got that glowy look to him. He's dressed sort of nondescriptly, in a t-shirt, blue jeans and beat up leather boots. He's got long black hair tied at the back of his neck, and he's a solid foot shorter than Jake. He has nothing like the expensive polished look of the Cullens, and when he talks his voice sounds like it comes out of a regular mushy human throat instead of having that oiled-nightingale quality the leeches all have. He seems scruffy and scrappy. Jake likes him immediately.

"Nahuel," says the hybrid, holding out his hand. Jake shakes it. "I didn't know until now there was another like me." Nahuel has an accent that Jake can't entirely place; it almost sounds Spanish, but isn't.

"Didn't I hear Alice say you have sisters?" asks Jake.

"They're not like me," says Nahuel shortly. He fiddles absentmindedly with a hole in his ratty t-shirt. "I am sorry about what happened to the girl—Nary, you called her?"

"Yeah, that's right," says Jake. "She was Renesmee originally, but I started calling her Nessie. Then those bastards gave her a new name, Nereid, and now she goes by Nary."

Nahuel nods. They stand in silence a few moments.

"So, do you live with your aunt or the Amazon chicks or what?" Jake asks, just to be polite and, truth be told, to have an excuse to avoid the freakazoids.

"Sometimes one or the other," says Nahuel, "Sometimes both. But not for a while; the last few decades I've lived in Belém with Marta."

"Marta?" repeats Jake. "Is she your girlfriend?"

"I guess you could call her that," says Nahuel.

"Huh," says Jake, surprised. "But you just said there weren't any others like you."

"She's human," explains Nahuel. "We wouldn't risk bringing her close to these ones." He glances at the roomful of leeches that the Cullens have so far convinced to drop by.

"A human girlfriend, huh?" asks Jake. It seems less weird coming from Nahuel than it ever did from, say, Edward.

"I don't know much about the Volturi," Nahuel admits. "We don't bother about them where I come from. And they don't bother about us. As far as I know they have never even heard of me or my sisters."

"Do you ever live with your sisters?" asks Jake. Nahuel twitches again, like a horse shaking off a fly. Jake gets the distinct impression Nahuel doesn't like talking about his family.

"They live with my father," says Nahuel. "I don't see them much."

There is another silence wherein Jake tries to think of something useful to say or, failing that, an excuse to leave.

"So, you have venom, right?" he finally asks. "You turned your aunt?"

"It was strongest when I was born," says Nahuel. "We think it was so strong then because I came too early; all my sisters were born when they were supposed to be born, and theirs was weaker. But we all have some, at least, or else we would age and die like everyone else."

* * *

Demetri looks up from between Nary's thighs, shakes his head and then sits up. She is staring out the window with a vague smile on her face. She doesn't seem to be paying attention to him at all.

"Anything wrong?" she asks him after a while, once she finally notices he's stopped.

"I was going to ask you the same thing," he says. "Were you not enjoying it? We can do something else if you want..."

"No, no, I'm fine," she says, stretching her arms over her head and sitting up too. "Just fine."

He shakes his head, his disgruntlement blunted but not erased by Corin's distant presence. He'll feel better when he passes her on his way out of the tower, and after that he'll feel much, much worse. He always does following a visit to Nary. When will she be able to leave this place?

"Do you think you'll be ready to come back to me soon?" Demetri asks her, looking out the window because it kills him to see that vacant look on her face.

"It doesn't matter to me," she says. Then she catches sight of his face. "I'm sorry, darling," she says quickly. "I didn't mean it like that. It's just so nice not to have to worry about things, that's all."

"How often do you eat?" he asks her.

"Oh, pretty often," she says noncommittally. "They bring us visitors maybe twice a week. We eat in the room at the bottom, there's a good place for drainage. Not that we ever spill or anything. You'd never believe how tidy the wives are."

"You don't mind the...the screams?" asks Demetri cautiously. Nary shrugs again, and Demetri shakes his head in disbelief. Her reluctance to feed on humans used to be an odd but basically untroubling quirk, one of the things that made her different and unique, a symbol of her half-human nature that rather amused Demetri when he wasn't worrying for her health. Her dismissal of her victims is so very much unlike her past self that it frightens him. And being frightened jolts the words from him before he can stop himself.

"Nary, what if we could find your family?"

Whatever response he was hoping for doesn't come. Nary only stares at him blankly. "I don't have a family," she says.

This is too much. This is not like her. This is not Nary.

"Yes you do," he says shortly, his head swimming with visions of what Aro will do to him for this, all of the things he will lose if this works. If it works, he will almost certainly lose her trust forever. But this has to end. Demetri has tried to take Aro's view of the situation; when he hangs around Chelsea, it even works. But never for long. Sooner or later Demetri has to leave Chelsea's presence, and then he is back to where he started, racking his brains for some way to wake her up. The real question is, would he rather have a lobotomized Nary who still loves him, or a furious Nary who may never forgive him? Either way he loses Nary. And of course, when Aro finds out about Demetri's subordination, there will be hell to pay. He'd better hope Aro doesn't have any other brilliant trackers lined up. He's playing with fire even entertaining these thoughts.

Better to leave it alone. That would be safest.

"I started a new sampler today," says Nary vacantly. "Pink roses on a blue ground."

On second thought, to hell with safety.

"You have a grandsire," says Demetri in a low voice. He takes her hands in one of his and uses the other to turn her face so she's looking him in the eyes. "He has a wife. You have aunts and uncles, Nary. I could find them." She just looks at him without emotion, and Demetri decides he might as well double down, since he's already committed himself to this bad, bad idea. "I know who they are," he says, his voice speeding up as she remains uninterested. "I've always known, Nary." There is nothing in her face to show she is even listening. "I hid you from them when you were a baby. I could have brought you to them in a moment."

There is nothing. Oh god, this isn't working. He was so sure it would get some reaction from her. This was the only bomb he had and the fuse won't even light. "I _lied_ to you. You should care about this, Nary! Why don't you _care?_"

Nary shrugs. "I'm happy here," she says carelessly.

"This isn't you," says Demetri helplessly. "You can't be happy like this."

"Oh, calm down, Demetri," she says, smiling a little. She taps the tip of her finger against his lips. "What, do you _want_ me to be angry at you? That doesn't even make sense." She giggles foolishly.

"I want you to feel _something_," he practically shouts. "You don't even feel _anything!_" There is a sudden, powerful surge of contentment from several floors down. He must have gotten loud enough for Corin to notice their disagreement; usually she doesn't use her power on Demetri when he is in Nary's room.

"I apologize for letting myself get so...heated," he says, smoothing his hair with one hand.

"Oh, it doesn't matter, Demetri," says Nary, patting the his cheek and starting down the stairs. "Come on, let's go sit with the wives for a while. Athenodora's been telling me about when she used to live in Pompeii."

_Yes_, thinks Demetri agreeably as he follows his wife. Sitting. Sitting will be lovely.

* * *

"Thank you all for being here," says Carlisle somberly. "You have all heard our tale. I know that it is a hard one to believe, and I know that few of you are in a hurry to align yourselves with those who would call the Volturi enemy. That is up to you. We are making no moves yet; right now, all we ask is that you listen, and speak if you have something to say."

Jake and Leah stand with Nahuel at the back of the crowd in the sunlit clearing, breathing through their mouths (it doesn't really help). There are just way too many red eyes out here. This should be a motherfucking jubilee for them, they should be chomping on heads left and right. But they can't make a move. Even the Council elders have agreed: bringing down the Volturi would be a far better aim than killing the vampires in the immediate vicinity, even though it hurts to let these murderers go on murderin'. It's all about the greater good.

Drag.

"You have heard our plans," says Esme in a ringing voice. Jake makes a point of listening to her; she's proven to be an amazingly insightful planner, way better than Carlisle at sifting through information and coming up with viable leads. Most of the details of their embryonic plan came from her. "In general, our plan is to contact the Volturi, showing them all due cordiality, and request a meeting on neutral territory. We will agree to bring with us a predetermined number of witness, both with and without particular skills. We will request that they bring the same number of witnesses with and without special abilities."

"And are we just to trust they'll keep their word?" demands one of the gross-out Romanian leeches. "They never have before."

"They will have no choice; they cannot fool me," says Alice. "Aro will know that if he shows up with more witnesses than he agreed on, or attempts an ambush of any kind, we will simply not be there to meet him. _I_ will not be there to meet him. And since it is me he wants so badly, he will have to cooperate. Since we have not yet written to them to ask for a meeting, we cannot even be sure they will accept; but I can see already they would be extremely likely to accept our request. That future, at least, shows up often."

"Through Eleazar and Carlisle, we have made an educated guess at which members of the Guard they are likely to favor," says Esme. "Eleazar?"

Eleazar steps forward and faces the crowd. "I worked with the Volturi for many long years," he says. "I was taken in by their lies for too long; now it is time for me to use what I have learned against them. Every member of the Guard is perfectly suited to the task of ensuring the safety of the coven, and each member of the Guard tends to be deployed in specific, well-defined ways. This will be an important meeting: Aro will hope to acquire Alice without losing Nary, and I am sure he will bring his best and brightest.

"Aro, Caius and Marcus will be sure to come, if we can persuade them to consent to a meeting at all. This means we can also count on Renata being present. From what I know of their usual patterns, I believe it likely that they will also bring Chelsea, Alec and Jane. Caius and Chelsea rarely go far without Corin. It can be assumed that Demetri will be there as well. We will demand that they bring Nary, but Aro will probably order Demetri to track her down and bring her back if she leaves with us."

"These are the ones they are absolutely most likely to bring," says Esme, "given how they've acted in the past; but there will be others. We've talked to all of you personally, and a few of you have agreed to join us in order to balance the odds in our favor. I know that some of you are undecided, and this is understandable. Perhaps it will help decide you if you can see and hear first-hand who has already agreed to stand with us."

One of the leeches, a short red-headed girl, takes a step toward the front of the room.

"Hello, everyone," she says in a lilting cadence. "Most of you already know and have tested this, but I have a gift for knowing when I'm being lied to. Even if the lie is unspoken, I will sense it. I know for certain that the Cullens and their...um, dog friends...have truly been wronged. I must stand with them, along with my coven-mates." The hulking Irish leeches flanking her nod slightly.

"Aro's strength lies in holding all the information," says Esme. "He has long operated by pretending to uphold truth and honor, but we know now that this is a facade. He is in an unstable position; even he must know it. He has borrowed power for too long by convincing us all of his justice, his impartiality, his omniscience. But he will never succeed in lying to Maggie. No one ever has before. She can expose him as no one else possibly can."

One of the Brazilian leeches who came with Nahuel takes Maggie's place. "My sisters and I," says the woman in a rough growl, "will stand with the Cullens. They ask only that we be witnesses, to force Aro's hand, but we pledge also to fight if we must. I am told that the Guard is invincible, that they owe much of their invincibility to just a few individuals. Like the little boy, the stripling who can make your mind see and hear nothing."

And suddenly, creepy little Alec is right there in the clearing, his fingers splayed and his eyes glaring; there is a sudden tidal movement as everyone springs away from the kid.

"So he can make you see nothing," laughs Zafrina in a coarse bark. "Big deal. I can make you see _anything_."

Alec vanishes in a flash of white flame, and the leeches begin to laugh nervously at their own fear. Without another word, Zafrina rejoins her sisters.

"Alec's ability to deprive his victims of all their senses is far-reaching," says Eleazar. "But Zafrina is, in short, his very antidote. Alec is the most powerful member of the Volturi offense, greater even than his twin Jane, for he can affect many at once. If you are still undecided, friends, reflect on this: Whatever Alec can hide, Zafrina can reveal. If Alec is a keystone of the Volturi empire, Zafrina is a chisel and hammer."

Benjamin, the boyish Egyptian, steps forward, ignoring the pleading hand his sinister-looking sire places on his arm. "Tia and I will join the Cullens," he says. "My power is not much, perhaps. All I can do is control the elements with my mind. How is this to help us if it comes to a fight against the Volturi, whose powers have so little to do with the tangible world? What of Renata, the bodyguard whom no attacker can approach? Or Jane, the torturer?"

Benjamin's mate Tia breaks off from the crowd, runs about fifty yards away, and then begins to sprint back toward Benjamin with her teeth bared.

"Look out, everyone!" exclaims Benjamin impishly. "It's the Guard!" Uncertain laughter ripples through the onlookers.

Suddenly, when Tia is still ten yards from her mate, a huge boulder rises beneath her feet and lifts her off the ground. Without missing a beat, she leaps from the boulder, only to land on a rising tree branch a few feet down. When she clears the tree branch, the boulder is in her way again and she is still airborne. It's a funny enough image that some of the watchers actually laugh out loud: it's like watching someone try to run down the up elevator.

"It's true that my power isn't much use offensively," says Benjamin, releasing the boulder and tree branch so that Tia can land on her feet. "But it can hold off attackers for a long time, if my concentration is unbroken. Everything around me becomes an extension of myself, if I wish it. I can send a hurricane to lift our enemies into the sky, I can send a river for them to swim against in vain. I can send _fire_." Everyone takes a tiny step back from him. Jake suppresses a laugh. Man, it's so precious how much these freakazoids hate fire! He should have brought a box of matches, just to fuck with them.

"If you are hesitant to join us because you are unsure of our power," finishes Benjamin, "just remember that if the Volturi decide to punish those who would stand against them, I can always drop a mountain on top of them." He smiles puckishly at his mate and returns to his spot.

"It should go without saying," says Jasper, "that I will stand with my coven and my wife. But I would like to show you what that means, if you don't mind, because I know that for many of you the greatest threat of all comes from the two who empower the whole Volturi empire: Chelsea and Corin. It is possible that we will run into them, and that they will both try to sway us. Eleazar says that Chelsea has been used to great effect in the past. In fact, some of you here have lost coven-mates to her power." A snarl escapes from the Egyptian leech and a few others.

"Chelsea alters the bonds between vampires, weakening or strengthening as she will. This is a power that works directly on the emotional subconscious. Fortunately for all of us, I have a little experience dealing with that." He takes on a slightly strained expression, and suddenly Jake feels a warm glow of affection for all of these vampires. In the back of his mind he knows that this is gross and awful and unacceptable, but he can't help it: Jasper is forcing him to like everyone, or at least to want to like them. Looking around, he can see that the others are feeling the same way. Mates move closer together, even vampires who are openly doubtful, like Alistair, lose their hostile expressions.

"I don't know if this will be enough to completely override Chelsea's power," continues Jasper, suddenly dropping the farce. Jake breathes a sigh of relief that he can go back to hating these mosquitos, and shares a disgusted look with Leah. She wrinkles her nose at him. "But it should be enough to throw a wrench in their usual MO. Chelsea's gift works in one way: she can _only_ affect relationships. But my emotional manipulation is much more varied, and there are a thousand ways to counterbalance a sudden urge to desert. I can fill you—yes, _all_ of you, at once—with feelings like moral superiority, so that even if Chelsea destroys your desire to stand with us you will still want to see justice done. I'm very good at moral superiority," he adds, winking. Jake's stomach sours.

"I can also counter Corin's gift, if they elect to bring her. Corin incapacitates her victims by causing them to feel artificial contentment, to accept their situation as inevitable and frankly not that bad. It is Corin who keeps Chelsea tied to the Volturi. I would wonder," he says, taking on that constipated look again, "if Corin's power could overpower _this_." And now Jake fills with restlessness. He bounces from foot to foot, curling and uncurling his fists. He just wants to do something. Why are they still talking? They should be _doing_ something!

"I've always been careful when I use my power," says Jasper, once more easing up on the voodoo. "I am well aware of its very great potential for harm. I do not use it to force someone to behave in a way that is inconsistent with their beliefs. I did that when I was first created, during the newborn wars, and I have turned from that path. But I _do_ know from my time in the newborn army that my power is potent and far-reaching. Just remember that not long after I was created, I was able to calm and cohere upwards of fifteen newborns. _Newborns_, with no self-control at all! And that was only when I first began to use my power. Since then I have only grown more proficient. I am just aching for the Volturi to give me a chance to use it."

"I hope you all understand how very serious we are," says Esme. "The Volturi have broken their own laws. They have borne false witness, pretending to us that our granddaughter was dead, keeping her hidden from us, letting us go on believing... They punish us severely for lying, yet they lie with impunity. Even if you have no sympathy for the plight of our granddaughter, at least think of your own good! Can you trust the Volturi to do right by you, when they would not even do right by Carlisle, whom they professed to hold in such high esteem? Their excuses for kidnapping Renesmee and turning her into Nereid are flimsy in the extreme; they wanted her, and so they took her and came up with a reason later. What will you do when they want something of _yours?_"

The crowd of vampires all begin speaking at once.

"—can't let them find out about you," Amun is murmuring to Benjamin.

"—like to see Felix fight me when I actually have something to be pissed about," says Emmett, cracking his knuckles.

"—never get past me," Alice is explaining to Alistair. "You wouldn't be in any danger, but you could help us so much!"

Jake shoots Esme an appreciative thumbs-up, which she returns with a small smile. Then he and Leah slip away, returning to La Push to hold some rousing rallies of their own.

* * *

Nary sits with Athenodora in the parlor on the fifth floor. Sulpicia is out of the tower with Aro. Corin is a floor above them, dressing Yejide and Maala for the day. They will spend it together, pleasantly, as friends and sisters. Nary understands now why they allow themselves to be locked in here day after day, century after century. It is not just Corin's contentment that holds them together. They love each other dearly. Athenodora, Sulpicia and Corin are closer than sisters, closer than mates. They are one heart in three bodies. And they could resent Nary for intruding, just as they could resent the two loonies who are confined to the tower with them. But they don't. They saw that she needed their kindness and they gave it freely.

It honors and delights Nary to be allowed to sink into the love of these three generous women. Why did she ever dread coming here? She didn't understand at all. They aren't prisoners, not even close. They are a coven of their own, a _family_ of their own, existing within the larger coven of Volturi but interacting with it very little. They have no ties to the Guard or the legions who live and work in Volterra Fulgida. They barely even have ties to their own husbands. They are a happy bubble, safe and sound in the sureness of their own mutual loyalty and devotion. It all makes sense, now. How could anyone resent a life so peaceful and loving as this?

Sulpicia glides silently into the room, followed by Corin, Yejide and Maala. She looks shaken, as she always does when Aro calls her out of the tower. She does not like to be away from her beloved sisters.

"You look wan, dear," says Athenodora, hurrying over to her and stroking her face with gentle fingers. Sulpicia relaxes against the touch. "How are you feeling?"

"Oh, I'm all right," says Sulpicia. "I wish he would come here, as Caius does. I don't like being away from you."

"Well, you're here now," says Athenodora comfortingly. "I have an idea, sweetheart. Why don't we visit with Utari?"

Sulpicia shoots a worried glance at Nary, but Athenodora laughs it off. "Oh, come now. Nary's all right, aren't you, Nary?" Nary nods. She's not sure what she's supposed to be _all right_ about, but whatever it is, they can trust her. She would never betray these dear women!

"Very well," says Sulpicia with a sigh. "I confess, it would lift my spirits immeasurably."

"Where is Utari?" Athenodora asks Corin.

"Feeding Kuwat," says Corin. "I will ask her to come when she is done." She vanishes down the stairs for a few minutes. Soon enough, Corin returns, and this time there is someone with her who must have come from one of the rooms lower down that Nary hasn't seen yet.

A young woman enters the room. She is golden-skinned and so frail-looking that Nary is amazed she can walk under the weight of her heavy black hair. Her eyes are almond-shaped and scarlet, clouded just like everyone else's around here. She does not look to be older than fourteen. She could be as young as twelve.

In her arms is a bundle, and the bundle is moving.

"There's the little angel!" squeals Sulpicia. "Give him here!" The girl-woman—Utari—gently settles the bundle into Sulpicia's arms. Athenodora leans over it and makes kissy noises.

"What's going on?" Nary asks stupidly.

"Didn't I tell you the East Tower was the best-kept secret in the world?" asks Sulpicia. "Here. Would you like to hold him?" Nary can't smell any human blood, but no way can this be an immortal child. Immortal children are forbidden. It's the Volturi who forbade them. They would never break their own law, the most unbreakable law in the land. Would they?

Sulpicia is pressing the bundle into Nary's arms. "Mind his head, now," she says indulgently.

"Goodness," breathes Nary. The infant is the most perfect creature she's ever seen. It can't be more than a day old. Its mouth is a perfect triangle, suckling vaguely at the air. It has a head covered in downy black hair. Everything about the baby, from its sweet milky-smelling cheeks to its translucent shell-like ears to its kicking tiny-boned feet, draws Nary in. This baby is _perfect_. He's an angel.

"This is Kuwat," says Athenodora softly, waving her fingers before the newborn infant's face. The baby tracks her fingers with its almond-shaped, bloodred eyes; then, quick as thought, it darts one hand up and grabs hold of a finger. Athenodora giggles and coos.

"How is this possible?" says Nary. "I thought immortal children were...were..." _Illegal_, she thinks. "Impossible to control," she says.

"It took us a long time to settle on little Kuwat," admits Sulpicia. "He was premature, you know. Isn't that right, Utari?" The girl-woman nods.

"I was going to die," she says in a tremulous soprano. "My little Kuwat tried to come too early. I labored three days. I was too tired to go on. I knew I would die, but I didn't want to die. I wasn't ready. That is when they came to me, and said that they could help."

"It was their idea," says Sulpicia. "Our husbands. We were so lonely up here. Happy, but...well, there are things a woman wants. We weren't over Didyme's death. We still aren't, of course, but it is easier with little Kuwat to keep us company." The sane women all nod sagely. Maala and Yejide nod vacantly, mimicking the others.

Nary looks at a kingfisher swooping past the window. "Has he been here this whole time?" she asks.

"Oh, yes," says Athenodora. "Utari and Kuwat live in the room below ours. We visit them when you're sleeping, but we thought it was time for you to be let in on the secret. That way we can visit in the daytime, too. As we did before you came."

"It isn't as if you're going anywhere!" giggles Sulpicia. Nary smiles in agreement, rocking Kuwat gently in her arms. He waves his hands and kicks his little feet.

"We knew that immortal children could not be controlled," says Athenodora, "but Caius had been doing experiments and he discovered that the younger the babe, the less their power. Oh, Kuwat here could break a human's neck easily enough, if a human were so stupid as to walk right up to him and put their neck in his hands. But he can't even sit up on his own, let alone crawl or walk. It isn't a matter of strength, you see, but of physiology. He was born prematurely and changed before the afterbirth had even dried. He was so young that his little bones were still soft and curvy before the venom hardened them. And psychologically, he hasn't developed to the age when he would know to look for his own food. He has no hunt instinct whatsoever; he just waits passively for blood to flow into his mouth."

"Kuwat is no danger to anyone," affirms Sulpicia, smiling indulgently at Nary and the baby. "He is completely dependent on us."

"He's wonderful," says Nary earnestly, gazing down into Kuwat's perfect, glowing golden face. She touches his open palm and feels his fingers snap shut reflexively. They're right: he _is_ strong, probably as strong as Nary. But he hasn't got the coordination of a grown vampire. He was changed with a baby's brain, squishy and undeveloped. He'll be a baby forever. He'll never learn to talk, or to recognize human words. He can barely support his own head because the cervical curve of his spine is too pronounced. He doesn't even have teeth.

"At first it was just Sulpicia, Corin and me up here," says Athenodora. "And we were happy enough, I suppose, but we missed—we _miss_—Didyme terribly. Sometimes I think her passing was hardest on us; the three of us were so close, you see. But then they brought us Maala. She'd been chased out of her village. They thought she was possessed by an evil demon, but they were wrong, weren't they Maala?"

Maala looks down and grins, dribbling venom onto her bare feet.

"Whoopsie!" says Athenodora, swooping down to wipe away the drool with a linen handkerchief.

"That was nice," says Sulpicia nostalgically. "We were glad when Maala came. She's marvelous at ringing the changes. She has an excellent ear for harmonies. And then, a century or two later, they brought us Utari and Kuwat. We really all consider ourselves his mommies."

"He's a lucky boy, to have so many mommies!" chirps Utari. "And we're lucky, because he'll always be a sweet little baby and never grow up!"

"Break your heart," mutters Yejide in an odd low croak that doesn't match her pretty face.

"That's right, Yejide," says Corin agreeably. "Yejide joined us about a century ago. And we've been a happy little family ever since!"

"And now you're here," says Sulpicia, smiling warmly at Nary. "And you'll never want to leave us, will you? Oh, do say you'll stay always and always!"

"With all my heart," says Nary, smiling back.

"Break your heart," croaks Yejide.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! Leave me a review and have a foxy weekend!**


	9. Nervous Phone Calls

"Nary, did you hear me?" asks Demetri. Nary is staring out the window with a foolish smile on her lips.

"Hmm?" she asks sleepily. "What did you say, my love?"

"I said, they're sending me to the Outback." Aro has been absent from Volterra for much of the past week, along with Renata, Marcus, and Chelsea. Demetri can tell from the network in his mind that Aro is visiting a few small covens that have formed temporary alliances with the Volturi in the past. This probably has something to do with the condensation of nomads around the Olympic coven, but Aro has been tight-lipped about his endgame. In fact, he hasn't called Demetri to his presence in quite a long time. This should worry Demetri, who is ordinarily so involved in Aro's foreign operations. Either Aro is distracted by bigger issues, or else Demetri is in very deep shit. Quite possibly both. As Demetri recalls, the tracker before him was frozen out of the Volturi in a very similar way, and he did not survive long on the outside.

But he couldn't deny a little thrill of relief when it was Caius who gave him the latest assignment, instead of Aro. He has at least a little longer before he has to fess up to Aro what he's done.

Demetri pulls Nary into a tight hug. He smells her hair and feels the silkiness of it between his fingers. _When did everything get so messy?_ he wants to say, but he knows the answer already. His life stopped being simple the day he met her. Now his whole world is a tangled web where nothing is certain anymore. But he cannot quite bring himself to regret it. Nary is worth anything.

"I'll miss you," says Nary, not sounding as if she'll miss him at all.

"Yes," says Demetri, pressing his cheek against the part in her hair and closing his eyes tightly. "I already miss you."

* * *

"You have to do it soon," growls the red wolf. "Your chance is slipping away."

"I know it is," says Nary comfortably. "But why rock the boat? It doesn't hurt so much anymore. I don't wake up screaming."

"That's the problem," the wolf insists. "That's the _problem!_"

"Good grief," says Nary, rolling her eyes. "You're beginning to sound like Demetri. Did you know he's lied to me since I was a baby? He knows where my family is. What a riot, right? He told me the other day. It was like he _wanted_ me to get mad at him, but why would I? I have a new family now. I'm not mad at all."

"You don't see a problem in that?" growls the wolf.

"I don't think so," says Nary complacently. "It doesn't feel like a problem. Nothing feels like a problem."

"Wake up!" roars the wolf, and its eyes are red and its teeth are sharp and it has big warm human hands that hold Nary loosely by the wrists. "This is what they've done to you!" he roars, and she just can't seem to make herself care. "Wake up! _WAKE UP!_"

Nary wakes up.

She lies in her bed for half a minute, gazing at the sun shining beautifully through her window. There are birds chirping. How pleasant it all is!

Then she remembers her dream, and realizes that dream-Jake was right, she may have already missed her last chance to escape. But how? How does she get out of here? As soon as she wakes up, Corin always—

Wait.

Nary lies perfectly still, forcing herself to breathe slowly and deeply. Her heart is racing; is Corin far enough away not to hear it?

A millimeter at a time, Nary slides her covers off of her body. She sits up, swings her toes silently to the cool stone floor. Achingly slow, she transfers her weight from her bottom to her feet. She clears her mind of all but the task of being silent. _Please don't hear me,_ she thinks desperately. _Don't hear me, Corin, don't hear me, please, please, please..._

She is standing beside her bed. _Don't hear me, I'm still asleep, you can't hear me_.

She is tip-toeing toward the western window. _For the love of god, don't hear me._

She is climbing onto the deep windowsill that looks out over the roof of Palazzo Eterno. It is a drop of about seven stories. Far, though survivable. But how fast will she be able to run if she twists an ankle?

Slowly, agonizingly, she pulls up her nightgown and girds it about her waist. The window is already open; thank god for that. She eases herself through, dangles from her fingertips, and searches with her toes for a niche, not that she expects to find any; wasn't this tower built to be unclimbable?

There's nothing for it; she'll have to fall. But the tower was built wider at the bottom and narrower at the top; perhaps she can use the slope to slow her descent, enough at least to spare her bones from injury.

Just as she is thinking this, Nary feels the first droplet of Corin's contentment seep into her mind, and she does the only thing she has time to do: she lets go of the window ledge and plummets.

Even Corin's magic holds no sway over gravity, and Nary knows the instant she passes beyond Corin's sphere of influence, because suddenly she is terribly afraid. Paranoid, even. She can't avoid making a sound as she strikes the roof of Palazzo Eterno, going instinctively into a roll to avoid shattering her shins. But it is a small sound; perhaps they will think it was only a bird. In another second Nary is on her feet and dashing on her tippy-toes down the length of the roof of the Palazzo. Nobody has sounded the alarm; she can see no glittering hands climbing up the walls, no scarlet eyes peeking over the edge of the roof. She sprints for the north end of the Palazzo, which she knows feeds into a thoroughfare that is always crowded with people this time of day. Human people, people like her, and the only protection she can hope for.

Nary doesn't look back at the tower before she leaps from the roof and lands in a roll in the middle of the busy street. Several people shriek and jump away, startled by her sudden appearance in their midst. Nary ignores them, ignores everything she was ever taught about appearing human in public. She races hell-for-leather down the street, shoving people aside or simply leap-frogging over them, and she can tell that her skin is glowing and her nightgown is at least three centuries out of date and her speed is over the legal limit for automobiles in this town. It doesn't matter. She can't hide that she's escaped. All she can do is try to get enough of a head start that by the time the Volturi catch up, she'll be safe in La Push.

* * *

Nary is riding a stolen motorcycle east, as fast as it will go. Her hair is braided to keep it from whipping her in the eyes and blinding her; her nightgown is hidden under a pair of baggy men's jeans and an outsize sweatshirt she stole when she nabbed the bike. They know she's gone, of course they know. But Demetri is in Australia, and Aro will not likely attempt tracking her without Demetri. How long does she have before Demetri returns from the desert? How long will it take them to reach her? Oh god, please give her a day at least. One day's head-start, is that too much to ask?

Nary can hardly believe she doesn't get pulled over by a cop on her way to Siena. But everyone drives like a lunatic in Italy, maybe she fits in better this way. It takes her less than an hour to reach the city, but it feels like days have passed. Her fingers and shoulders are stiff and she has terrible windburn covering the entire front half of her body. But none of that matters.

Nary scans a map at a tourist stand until she has memorized the layout of the city. She is not far from the airport, but she will need money for a plane ticket. There is only one thing she can sell.

She searches for the most disreputable-looking pawnshop she can find, knowing that only a real crook will accept what is so apparently a stolen priceless treasure. She finally locates a run-down store-front in a cramped alley and sidles in through piles of junk and a good many metal detectors that ignore her completely.

"I want to sell something," she says to the greasy-looking snaggle-toothed woman behind the counter. Instead of answering, the woman just holds out a wrinkled claw. Nary takes one last look at Demetri's ring, given to her on the last night everything felt normal. Hell, that was half a lifetime ago, or almost. She was a different person. And this is no time to be sentimental, especially with the flood of emotions that have been waiting to wreck her ever since Demetri told her he knows who her family is. If she starts thinking about him now, she is going to be a useless mess in no time. With a sigh, she slides the ring from her finger and drops it in the woman's palm. The woman's eyes grow wide and she scrabbles under her desk for a gem magnifier. "How much?" Nary asks.

"This is stolen," says the woman. Nary remembers what Demetri used to say about her, how people always trust her implicitly. She smiles in what she hopes is an open and trustworthy way.

"No, it's not," she says, pitching her voice a tone higher and more youthful than usual. She looks the woman straight in the eyes; the woman looks away first.

"Where'd you get it, huh?" asks the woman, but already she sounds less suspicious.

"It was a gift," says Nary. "From a man." She rolls her eyes facetiously and winks. The woman breaks a smile.

"Ahhh," she says, chuckling a little. "I know just what you mean." She holds the ring under the magnifier and inspects it minutely. "When my husband ran off with his little school-teacher slut, I sold my engagement ring and spent the money on pot." She laughs at her own story. Nary smiles indulgently. "This is a pretty big gift to sell, though," says the woman. "You're gonna regret it. Trust me, sweetheart, a face like yours, you hang on to this ring and give it a few days, he'll be back."

She tries to press the ring back into Nary's hand, but Nary doesn't let her. "Hey, you need to sell something, what about that?" The woman's eyes flick over Nary's elaborate sea-glass necklace; Nary stuffs it protectively into her sweatshirt.

"Not this," she says. "The ring." Then, after a little pause, "If he really wants me to have it, he can buy it back. And you can charge him double, for me." The woman laughs.

"Listen," she says apologetically, still grinning, "unless you got paperwork for this I can't take it."

"Oh, please?" says Nary, opening her eyes extra-wide and allowing her lip to tremble ever-so-slightly. "It would mean so much to me. As a favor?"

The woman visibly softens. She looks out the open door. She glances up at her security monitor and then quickly away.

"Twenty-five hundred," she says. "That's it."

Nary pretends to deliberate, but twenty-five-hundred euros should be enough to get her on a flight to America. Probably. It's pocket-change to someone like her, which is why she has no idea what would be normal.

"Fine," she says at last. The woman hands over the money in grubby notes and watches while Nary counts it.

"—twenty four, twenty five," Nary finishes. "Thank you."

A moment later, she is gone, one wedding ring poorer.

* * *

"Flight 266 for Paris is now boarding," announces a competent-sounding female voice. Nary dips her hand into the airport bathroom's sink and scoops out handfuls of lustrous, golden-brown curls three feet long, which she dumps unceremoniously in the trashcan as she exits the bathroom. Lacking proper identification, she was forced to sneak past the security checkpoints after buying her ticket. She bought a pair of sunglasses and a straw sunhat at a kiosk, and then a cake of greasy makeup to camouflage her smooth, radiant complexion. But she is still paranoid that someone will recognize her and report her to the authorities. She knows that Aro is more than capable of putting out the word on his absconded prisoner.

But nobody stops her, although she is sure that there are more policemen than there should be, milling around and checking out all the white girls with long curly hair. Nary tries to look non-guilty as she hands over her boarding pass and follows a line of people down the center aisle of the plane. She barely breathes until the plane is in the air. Even then, she doesn't relax.

* * *

Demetri feels a tickling sensation at the back of his skull: Nary's thread, stronger than it has been for months, is in motion. There are no Volturi strands accompanying her. She is on her own, moving away from the coven.

Demetri glances at his cell-phone, but he is in the middle of nowhere with no service, and it remains silent. He will have to make himself available to Aro soon; anything else would look like subordination.

But he'll give her a day before he leaves the Outback. He fixates on her strand, ignoring his current mission completely. He doesn't need to be a supernatural tracker to know where she's going, but he can't force himself to look away.

* * *

Nary is in American airspace now, somewhere over the Great Plains according to the pilot, but hardly out of the woods. She stole a passport from a girl who looked sort of like her, back at the airport in Pisa; have the authorities put out the word on that yet? Has Carolina Durante, 23, even noticed its absence?

On top of her paranoia, Nary is famished. She has literally never in her life drunk anything but blood. She stares up at the flight attendant, who taps his foot impatiently but doesn't drop his polite smile. Would they have blood here? Maybe someone's pet dog or something?

"Nothing for me, thank you," she says in a small voice.

* * *

"She is gone," says Aro's voice, dry and displeased. Demetri's hair stands on end. Aro doesn't often sound like that, and when he does, it is usually best to run in the opposite direction.

"Yes, milord," he says. "I felt her moving quickly away from Italy. I called you as soon as I reached a town with a cellphone tower." This is technically true. What he doesn't mention is how long it took him to start _looking_ for a town with a cellphone tower.

"Where is she?" asks Aro.

Demetri is afraid to tell his master what they both already know; but of course he has no choice. "She is moving toward the Olympic coven," he says quietly. "Would you like me to follow her?"

"She is out of our reach now," says Aro, and his displeasure sends a shot of pure fear through Demetri's spine. "How many others have joined the Cullens?"

"I recognize the Denalis, the Egyptian coven, the Romanians, the Irish, as well as the nomads Alistair, Mary and Randall. There could be more, milord, that I have never met."

"They have planned for this," says Aro coldly. "The presumption of the Cullens will not go unpunished. I will decide what to do. You will wait for further instructions."

* * *

The leeches are bickering again. And Jake is fed up with their inability to see reason. Again.

"They cannot be trusted to arbitrate our laws!" argues Esme.

"You talk of a coup!" Amun shoots back.

"What's wrong with that?" hisses Vladimir. "You cannot deny you have long hoped for a coup."

"We are not saying we want to overthrow the Volturi," says Esme. "But they must be made to pay for the breaking of their own laws! We seek not mutiny but justice! If you do not join with us now, then you will seek it for yourself too late."

Jake feels his phone buzzing in his shorts pocket. It's just his dad calling, but hey, anything's better than listening to this rabble.

"What's up?" Jake answers the phone.

"Jake, you need to get home, son," says his dad.

"Why, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, nobody's hurt," says Billy. "I don't want to talk about it over the phone. But you need to come home now. Run. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. Just get here as fast as you can."

"Yeah, okay," says Jake, hanging up. _I gotta go_, he mouths to Esme, who gives him the thumbs-up. She probably heard the whole cryptic conversation anyway.

Jake ties his shorts around his legs in the Cullens' driveway, not caring if there's anyone around to see his nakedness. He can run fast as fuck but he's far from home, and he still has plenty of time to worry. Is Billy okay? Did something happen to Rachel? Joseph or Richard? Oh god, he hopes not. Luckily, it's dark out already, and he can run the whole way home, right up onto the rez.

By the time he is skidding to a stop in front of Billy's house, he has worked himself into a real frenzy, convinced that something terrible has happened to his sister's family. He drops out of his phase and yanks up his shorts even as he is bounding up the front steps and crashing through the door. Well, his dad's okay, he's just hanging out in his wheelchair with a cup of coffee, looking at Jake with what can only be described as a _What the everloving fuck is going on, son?_ look on his face. So, probably not something with Rachel. Jake breathes a sigh of relief.

And stops.

He inhales again, and then his eyes race around the room.

"Where is she?" he demands, crossing the room in one step and looking around him wildly.

"In the loo," says his dad, and before the last word has even left his lips, Nary is running down the hall from the bathroom and hurling herself into Jake's arms. She is hyperventilating, he can hear and feel the sharp spasms of her diaphragm, and soon her panting turns into sobbing.

"Nary," Jake repeats, over and over and over again, "Nary, you're safe, you're safe, honey, you're safe now." He feels hot tears on his neck. How did she get here? How is this even possible? It's been _months_ since her last letter; he wouldn't let himself believe it but deep down he was afraid they'd killed her, and yet here she is, warm and rumpled in his arms, crying so hard she can't even breathe.

_Alive_, his brain is chanting. "You're safe with me, you're safe, you're safe here..." And then a strange thing happens: Jake's legs can't support his weight anymore, and he sinks to the floor with Nary still wrapped around him. "I won't let them hurt you," he thinks he says, but who can tell over the noise of their hearts pounding?

"Oh, J-J-_Jake_!" she wails. "I c-c-c, I c-can't...I can't stop crying, I—"

"It's okay, honey, it's okay, don't worry," he whispers, "I've got you, you cry all you want." There is a catch in his throat that won't let him speak above a nearly-inaudible undertone or he'll start bawling—

Oh, shit, no, there it is, he's bawling anyway. Sobs begin to rip violently through Jake's throat, loud and ugly and uncontrollable. They cling to each other on the floor of Billy Black's living room, wailing until they are both too dry to produce even one more tear. And even then, they don't move: Nary curls herself under Jake's chin. Jake wraps his arms around her small body and crushes her to his chest. He can feel both their pulses acutely. He can feel her tears still drying on his neck.

"What happened, honey?" he asks at last. "Why did your letters stop? How did you get away?"

"They l-l-locked me up," she says in a dried-out voice. "They have a woman who makes you feel content, it's her power, they use her to keep the wives from running away and they just stuck me up there with them, I didn't even _want_ to run away most of the time, she made me feel like staying forever..."

"Shhh," says Jake, stroking her hair. "It's okay, you don't have to say it all now—"

"I _want_ to," says Nary vehemently. "They couldn't touch me when I was asleep, they couldn't make me feel that, that damn _complacency_, but as soon as I woke up they put me under again..." Jake isn't really able to follow this explanation, but he doesn't interrupt.

"A few days ago Demetri told me I have a family, and I didn't care then because of Corin, but what if I could find them, Jake? What if they could help hide me? And then yesterday morning I woke up and for once Corin didn't hear me, and so I jumped out of the window and ran. I sold my wedding ring for a plane ticket." Her eyes well up again as she looks sadly at the empty third finger of her right hand. "They'll come after me," she says. "You won't be safe, I just didn't know where else to go, but I'll find my family now I know I have one. I just need a little time, I just..."

"We've been planning for this," Jake says. "You'll be safer here than anywhere else."

"'We'?" she repeats, looking up at him. Her eyes are puffy and rimmed in red. Her beautiful hair has been hacked into a scraggly bob, and pieces of it are sticking to the salty tear-tracks on her cheeks. "You mean, you and the other wolf?"

"Well, her," says Jake, "but also...your family. Your whole family has been making plans to get you back."

"What are you talking about?" Nary asks uncertainly. Then, louder, "You know where they are?"

"Yes," says Jake gently. "They're my family too, in a way. We've been working together for years. Whoa, there, little one, breathe, just try and breathe. I've got you."

"My family," she wheezes. "My family. This can't be real. It can't be."

"It is. They're not far. And they're amazing, they're the best family you could possibly have. You're going to love them. They already adore you. Almost as much as I do. Your letters were...well, we needed them. Badly."

"You...read my letters?" she asks, her brown eyes shining. Jake nods.

"Every one," he says. "Cover to cover, over and over again. Your letters were what kept me going. And when I got the last one..." Nary drops her eyes evasively, but Jake lifts her chin gently with his fingers until she is looking at him once more. "That was when we knew we had to get you out of there, no matter what it might do to us. You've been so brave, sweetheart."

"You don't know what I've done," she mumbles. "You shouldn't forgive me, you shouldn't love me after the things I've done—"

"Too late," says Jake. He kissed her swollen eyelids and her tear-stained cheeks and the top of her tangled head. "It's too late, you can't stop me loving you now."

Nary cups her palm against Jake's cheek and he suddenly hears her voice echoing in his head: _Why?_ He hears the plea behind the question.

"I love you," he whispers, "because you are good, and because you are you. And you know what?"

"What?"

"If you were just one of those things, I'd love you anyway."

* * *

**Aaaaand...things happen. Thanks for reading and reviewing. Or, you know, reading.**


	10. Reunion

"She is very close to the Cullens and their friends, milord," says Demetri hollowly into the phone. "She is with the shape-shifter now."

"Very well, Demetri," says Aro. "You may abandon your present assignment; you will be needed in North Africa presently. Find Marcus and the nomad Said. Marcus will tell you what to do next."

* * *

"Esme?" says Jake into his phone. There is something so basically safe and comforting and familiar about Jake. He's the only person she knows out here, and by far the person she trusts most. There is a strange sort of loyalty that ties him to her, and it feels much, much stronger than the loyalty that Chelsea enforces at Aro's bidding. It's the loyalty of true family. Jake is like a brother and a father and a friend, all in one person. She feels secure with him, even though she knows she's not. Nary clings to him pathetically, afraid to be alone for even one second, jumping at the least little noise and feeling safe only when he is within touching distance. It's ridiculous: She is Nary, lifelong serial murderess, erstwhile darling of the scariest big-bads in the land, solitary escapee of the most inescapable prison in the most impenetrable fortress in the world.

But Aro has a long reach and Nary knows it. She's not sure why Demetri suddenly confessed his sins to her in the Tower, but she knows that nothing will stop him from coming after her if Aro commands it. Or if Aro doesn't command it. In fact, unless Aro wants her to stay gone, no force on Earth can hold Demetri back from her; mates never give up on each other, that's one thing she knows for sure. And she'll never evade him on her own. Right now, Jake is the only thing standing between her and a hell she is determined she will die rather than face again. She can't possibly do this alone.

"_Yes, Jake? Is everything all right? You left in such a hurry. I hope your father's well." _Nary listens hungrily to each word, knowing that this is her grandmother on the other end.

_Should I tell her?_ Jake mouths to Nary, and she nods nervously. "Esme," he says aloud, "We have a visitor. How soon can you and your family get back to Forks?"

There is a pause. "_Soon_," says Esme. Then, quietly, "_Jacob? What...what kind of visitor? Good or bad?"_

"Good," says Jake. "Wonderful, in fact. She's wonderful."

"_She—?" _squeaks Esme.

"Yes," says Jake. "_She_. Just bring the family. We'll meet you at the glass house. Come meet your granddaughter."

Nary hears the overture of an outcry on the other end before the connection is cut.

* * *

"I can't believe it," says Nary for a seventh time. "A real family. I can't believe it."

"They've missed you so much," says Jake.

"Tell me about them?" she asks as he drives them one-handed out of La Push. There's so much she wants to know. How many are there? How old are they? Are they nice?

"There are six," says Jake. "Your grandmother and grandfather, Esme and Carlisle. Two aunts, two uncles: Rosalie and Emmett, Alice and Jasper."

"Carlisle?" says Nary. "Not...Carlisle _Cullen?_"

Jake turns to her in surprise. "Yes," he says. "Carlisle Cullen. They told you about him?"

"Not exactly," she says. "It was Sulpicia. Aro's wife. She didn't say he was any relation to me; I don't think she even knew." Her heart could just about float out of her chest as she remembers what Sulpicia said about the man. He had golden eyes, she said, because he abstained from drinking people. His whole coven abstained from people. Of all the vampires in the whole wide world for her to be related to...! This is without a doubt the first piece of really, unambiguously good news Nary has had in way too long to measure.

"That's right," says Jake. "They call themselves vegetarians. They only drink animal blood." They drive some time in silence.

"Jake," says Nary as they are finally creeping up the long driveway toward the glass-fronted mansion. "I'm scared."

"Why?" he asks. Not _Don't be_, not _You'll be fine_, just a simple _Why?_ Like she's not wrong for feeling afraid. This man is wonderful. Strange, and a stranger, but wonderful.

"They know the...the thing I did." She can't even believe _Jake_ is okay with this, but the one thing she knows about Jake—and yes, it is only one thing—is that there doesn't seem to be anything she can do that will break his love for her.

"And they still love you. Believe me, that letter...well, if you could have seen what they were like after they saw it..."

"What were they like?" she asks nervously.

"Let me put it this way: they've only just finished patching up their house. The whole downstairs had to be replaced. Matter of fact, my dad had to patch up a big ol' hole in his front wall, too, 'cause I phased right there in the living room when I read what you wrote. And then your family did basically the same thing."

"Oh." Nary feels her insides tighten up.

"We just had to destroy something, and those fucking Volturi were not around for us to destroy. They did this to you, and they are going to pay. _They did this to you._" Jake's voice by this time is low and hard. "But we won't talk about that tonight. Tonight, you meet your family."

He parks the car. It's dark out, and Nary can see straight into the well-lit glass-fronted living room. There are six vampires in there, all of them as inhumanly beautiful as only vampires can be. And she can tell they all have golden eyes.

The vampires can obviously see her and Jake as they approach, but all of them stay seated except one. The oldest-looking one, a female who looks physically as old as Nary does, crosses to the front door and pulls it open just as Jake and Nary climb onto the front porch.

"Esme," says Jake.

"Hello," says the woman. Esme. Nary's grandmother.

"Hello," says Nary. "I'm Nar—"

But before she can even get the whole word out, Esme has thrown her arms around Nary, pulling her close to that cool unmoving breast.

"I'm so glad you're here," Esme is saying. "At last, oh my darling, we've wanted you for so long and you're here at last—" She sounds like she would be crying if only she still could. Nary feels a pricking behind her own eyelids.

Esme embraces her for a long, long time, and then a deep male voice from the living room shouts out, "Esme, are you gonna come back or are we gonna have to come get you? The rest of us want to see her too!"

"Coming!" rings Esme. "That was Emmett," she whispers to Nary, putting an arm around her shoulders and leading her into the living room. "Your uncle. We didn't want to rush you at the door."

"Thank you," says Nary. She feels numb and confused. She doesn't know these people at all; are they going to expect her to suddenly be one of them? She's not sure she can do that. She only found out about them a few days ago. She throws Jake a desperate glance and he squeezes her fingers.

_Please don't let go of my hand,_ she thinks. _You're the only one here I know_. He squeezes her fingers once more in response.

"Nary," says a golden-haired man who stands to greet her. "My name is Carlisle. I'm your grandfather." He holds out a hand and Nary shakes it with her free one.

"Hi," she says quietly. "I'm Nary."

A honey-haired woman who is at least as breathtakingly beautiful as Heidi pushes Carlisle out of the way.

"I'm your aunt Rosalie," she says in a honey-smooth voice that matches her glorious looks. She holds her arms open in the universal gesture for _If I hug you will you hug me back or will you try to run away?_ Nary debates for about half a second and then gives Rosalie a hug.

"Dude, Nary," says a huge brown-haired guy who is built like Felix. "Seriously, girl, your letters were fuckin' awesome!" Then, without waiting for permission, he sweeps her into a massive bear-hug, and she feels seismic chuckles quaking through him. "I swear to god, when you rambled on for three pages about _shibori_, I laughed till I almost remembered what it would be like to shit myself! You rock!" He puts her down and slaps her manfully on the shoulder, and he seems so cool and down-to-earth and not like, awed to death by the whole situation that he actually startles a smile out of her. "I'm Emmett, by the way," he adds, grinning. "I'm the cool uncle." Nary's smile widens.

"And I'm the uptight uncle," says another blond guy with a twang in his voice and a small smile. Just as she is thinking how nervous his formal manner makes her feel, there is a curious sensation of all her worries slipping away.

But they don't slip away so fast that she has no time to react. "What is that?" she yelps, jumping away from the group. "Who's doing that?"

"I thought it would make you more comfortable—" says Jasper.

"What are you doing to me?" she gasps. It's Corin all over again! She can see Aro's cruel smile as Corin leads her away to the East Tower. Jake's grip tightens on her hand and she feels rather than sees him shaking his head at Jasper. "Please don't," she pleads. "Leave my feelings alone, _please_." She can't imagine making a worse impression on her newfound family; she's already freaking out at them and the introductions haven't even been completed. But she can't help it. Ever since leaving the tower she's been edgy and paranoid and sore all over. Is that withdrawal from Corin's addictive power? Or is it just a normal response to reality?

"Please, accept my apology," says Jasper gravely. "That was rude of me; I should have asked first." The vampires all look worriedly at each other; Jasper looks unbelievably remorseful.

"It's...um, I accept," says Nary shakily. The last vampire, a very tiny black-haired female, pirouettes to the front and favors Nary with an extremely perky grin.

"I'm Alice," says the girl in a voice like a crystal bell. "I can see the future and I can tell you and I are going to be friends. Although those are unrelated statements; I can't actually see _your _future."

"You can see the future?" asks Nary, looking down almost a foot into Alice's bright yellow eyes. She's never even _heard_ of a skill like that! She would never have believed it existed; how is this girl not Aro's crown jewel?

"Mm-hmm," says Alice, nodding smugly. "But I can't see past werewolves _or_ hybrids, so if you're about to ask me what you're going to wear tomorrow, I'll have to tell you the old-fashioned way."

"What's the old-fashioned way?" asks Nary bemusedly.

"Helping you pick out your outfit!" cheeps Alice, clearly pleased that Nary took the bait. Nary smiles uncertainly. Alice seems adorable and she is almost criminally chipper, and at any other time that would be a good thing, but it's all feeling a bit much for Nary right now.

"Oh," says Nary. "This is...that would be nice. I um, I didn't bring any clothes with me from Volterra, and this stuff isn't really my size."

"I wasn't going to say anything," says Alice with a wink. Nary smiles at her more warmly.

"I stole it off a clothesline," says Nary. "It's not mine. I still have my nightgown on underneath." The Cullens all glance at each other, clearly debating whether or not to ask Nary to elaborate. Nary sighs. This meeting is proving to be a strain on her already stretched nerves, but it's clear that they are trying hard to make her feel accepted. _I don't know what to do next_, she thinks. Right away, Jake speaks to the group.

"Why don't we sit and maybe have a bite? Nary hasn't eaten in days."

"Oh, you poor thing!" clucks Esme, going into action. "Of course, you must be famished! Why don't you come into the kitchen and see what we...have..." She trails off uncertainly.

"Um, I heard you guys drink, um, animal blood?" she says hesitantly. "I, uh, do that too. Or..." She thinks about the people she ate in the East Tower, and hears Jake's heart skip a beat. "I try to, anyway. When I can."

"I have an idea," says Emmett. "If you want to go hunting, there's some small game in the woods around here. We try to avoid hunting here too much, since we live here and we don't want to screw up the population. But if you don't want to hunt yourself right now I could always go grab you something." Nary smiles gratefully at him.

"That would be good," she says. "Thanks, Emmett." He grins and bobs his head.

"So, do you have a preference?" he asks. "We have mule deer, sometimes mountain lions, sometimes black bears...those don't usually come this close to Forks though..."

"Whatever you find will be perfect, I'm sure," she says. "I don't want to be an inconvenience." Emmett snorts with laughter at that.

"Dude, Nary, I would _kill_ to hunt an animal that was actually strong enough to inconvenience me. Sadly, it's more or less fish in a barrel. But I'll try to bring you something good." He pats her once more on the back, almost knocking her over in the process, and departs.

"Maybe I'd better go with him," says Jasper, clearly in a hurry to extract himself from the situation. "If that's okay with you all." Nary nods.

The remaining Cullens, Jake, and Nary all sit down in the pristine white living room.

"I can hardly believe you're really here," says Alice. "I never would have believed it. How did you ever manage?"

"Oh, I..." she falters. "Demetri told me I had a family, and he said...he said he could help me look and I guess I just..." She doesn't mention the part where Demetri practically begged her to get angry at him. That will be too hard to explain, especially as she doesn't really understand it herself. None of the other mated vampires she's met act like that. The thought of Aro begging Sulpicia to get angry at him is so ridiculous she could laugh out loud. She has run the memory over and over again, in the airports, on the planes, running across La Push. She has replayed it till the memory went stale and her head ached, and it just makes less sense to her each time. Why on earth would Demetri bring something like that up? It wasn't as if she caught him in the lie. She'd never even suspected him.

A sharp intake of breath cuts into her ponderings. "He actually did it," says Carlisle in a low voice. "I didn't believe he would."

Jake must not like talking about Demetri, because he changes the subject quickly. He and Esme talk about something to do with witnesses for a while, and Nary take the opportunity to push away her stale thoughts and look around curiously. There is some sort of geometric mural, mostly in shades of blue and red, on the stair wall. There is a baby grand in one corner, with a single red rosebud in a vase on top of it.

"Who plays the piano?" asks Nary. All yellow eyes suddenly look away and Nary wonders immediately what she said wrong.

"Edward used to play," says Alice gently, pressing her hand over Nary's. "He was really good. We all know how to play a little, but it just doesn't feel right, playing it without him around..."

"Oh," says Nary. "I'm so sorry, I didn't realize..."

"That's all right, dear," says Esme. "You can ask whatever you like. Nothing that you say is wrong, not to family. Of course you're curious about your father."

That's right, he was her dad. Nary has a million questions, but she is still too overwhelmed to voice them right now.

"So, Nary," says Alice. "When can we go play dress-up? That is one of my absolute favorite things to do. You'll never fit into any of my clothes; you're closer to Esme's height but you're shaped like your mom...I'm sure we can come up with something to hold us over til we can go shopping for real!"

"Um," says Nary. "Whenever you want, I guess."

"Let's let her eat first," says Esme pointedly. Alice pouts prettily and sinks back into her seat.

"I heard a little bit about you, although I didn't know you were my grandfather," says Nary to Carlisle, straining to think of something to say. "When I was in the East Tower." An expression of horror flits across Carlisle's face at the words _East Tower_, but he masters himself and smiles congenially at her.

"Nothing good, I imagine," says Carlisle. "I'm afraid the Volturi aren't very happy with me at the moment."

"Oh, I don't know anything about that," says Nary. "Sulpicia was telling me that some vampires don't drink from humans, and then she said you used to live there a long time ago."

"Ah, of course," says Carlisle. "Yes, as much as I cherished the air of art and culture, I did eventually feel that I would be happier with people more like me. And since I didn't know of any others like me, I had to create my own family. Not Alice or Jasper, but the others."

"Will you tell me about it?" asks Nary. She's longing to know where she fits into this family, and where the Cullens fit into the rest of the world; and besides, if Carlisle is telling a story no one will expect her to say anything.

"Certainly," says Carlisle. "I was created in the mid-seventeenth century, and I was alone for a long time. I was very fortunate; I discovered by accident that it is possible to survive on animal blood, and soon built such a tolerance to it that I was able to become a doctor. That is how I met Esme; although she wasn't the first of my family that I turned, she was the first I ever met."

"I was sixteen," says Esme with a nostalgic smile. "I broke my leg tumbling out of a tree and Dr. Cullen set me up. I had a terrible crush on him after that; I'd never seen such a handsome man. And he had a very charming bedside manner. I'm afraid every man I met after him seemed a little lacking. I did marry, though, eventually. You had to in those days. And then, about ten years later, I was very ill, and like magic Dr. Cullen was there to care for me. I would have died if he hadn't changed me."

"What about your husband?" asks Nary, and then she bites her lip, already wishing she hadn't spoken. But Esme doesn't seem to mind her prying.

"It wasn't a good match," says Esme breezily. "I had already left him by then, anyway. I was happy to join Carlisle and Edward."

"Edward?" asks Nary. "My father?"

"That's right," says Carlisle. "Edward was the first vampire I created. He was dying of the Spanish flu just after the Great War. His mother begged me to save his life if I could, and so I did the only thing there was _to_ do. He was seventeen. Edward did not take to the vampire life as readily as Esme. He was a sensitive boy, and he had a power that rendered him even more sensitive."

"He had a power?"

"Yes," says Carlisle. "Edward could read minds."

"Goodness!" exclaims Nary. "I didn't think anyone but Aro could do that! That is a rare gift, from what I've heard."

"It was indeed a rare gift," says Carlisle. "Edward could hear the thoughts of others even at a distance, although unlike Aro he could only hear what was passing at the moment. I believe Aro hoped to acquire Edward at some point, but of course that never happened."

And all of a sudden Nary is remembering the flaming boat, her beautiful mother balanced on the wreckage and fighting Yejide. Jake yelps and leaps to his feet, staring at her in horror.

"Jacob?" asks Esme in concern. "What's wrong?"

"Nary...?" he asks her in a whisper. "Was that...?"

Nary just looks at him, wide-eyed.

"What's going on?" asks Alice, looking anxiously from face to face. "What happened?"

"I know who did it," whispers Nary. "I know who killed them." She squeezes her eyes closed so she doesn't have to see their faces, but she isn't quite fast enough to block out their horror.

"What?" says Rosalie. "How? Who was it?"

"We mustn't pressure her," says Esme, but Nary shakes her head. Might as well get it over with.

"I met her," she says. "I remembered it all my life, but I didn't realize I was remembering it, I thought it was only a dream." She glances at Jake. "That happens to me a lot." Jake sits back down on the couch and his presence throws off a heat that gives her courage.

"I don't know exactly what happened," she says, watching the old dream unfold against her closed eyelids. "In my dream, I was in the water, and I was watching two women on a burning boat. I thought they were dancing, but they weren't, they were fighting. One was pale, with dark hair, and the other one was dark. They both had red eyes." She opens her eyes and is startled by the intense expressions on the faces around her. "I don't have to say this now," she says. "If you don't want me to."

"Please," begs Rosalie in a throbbing voice. "We've waited so long to know."

"The pale one—I guess that was my mom—ripped off the dark one's arm and threw it in the fire. And then I started crying, and the dark one looked at me, and as soon as she turned, my mom ripped off her head. And her head and her body fell into the water, and my mom was just about to jump out to me, but a spark caught her and she, she..."

"Yes," says Carlisle. "We understand."

Nary shakes her head. "No," she says. "You don't. Not yet. Even I don't understand it. When they took me to the East Tower, there were...there were people there that nobody knows about. There are two women there, Maala and Yejide. Yejide is the one I remembered in my dreams. She's...she's insane. Or no, not insane, exactly, but her brain is not developed properly. She might as well be an infant in a woman's body. Maala is the same way. They are quiet because Corin is there; I don't know what they would be like without her."

"So that's how she did it," says Rosalie. "But—"

"If she is addled," says Carlisle, finishing Rosalie's thought, "then how could she have planned it on her own? Someone sent her."

"Nary," says Rosalie, "Do you know who—"

"Can't we talk about this later?" asks Jake urgently. "Come on, guys, let's give Nary some breathing room, huh?"

"Of course," says Rosalie. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," says Nary. Actually, being able to talk about something real and definite was a nice reprieve from all that murky family stuff. But she's so tired and so hungry; she doesn't know how long she can keep this up.

She doesn't have to keep it up long at all, because Emmett and Jasper return with a deer.

"Sorry, we didn't find anything better," says Emmett. "But I figured speed was of the essence, so...here ya go!" He stands on the threshold of the house with the deer still kicking in his arms. "I left it alive for you, but it's pretty pissed right now. You need me to hold it still?"

"Sure," says Nary, crossing to Emmett. She steps out onto the patio with him. "Thank you," she says gratefully before sinking her teeth into its neck.

She drinks the whole thing in one go and immediately feels several shades better about life. But being well-fed has its drawbacks: now she can focus on how damn _tired _she is. She stands looking around at her family and sways a little. Instantly there are seven pairs of hands ready to hold her up.

"I'm fine," she says, but a yawn gives the lie to her words.

"Would you like to sleep here tonight?" asks Carlisle. "We have beds."

Nary looks at Jake. She takes his hand and thinks, _If I stay here for the night, do you think you could stay too?_

"You guys mind if I crash here too?" Jake asks, right on cue.

"Of course, dear," says Esme. "Would you like me to fix you some supper? You must be hungry, too." Jake shoots Nary a questioning glance, and she shrugs.

"Yeah, okay," says Jake. "Thanks, Esme."

"Nary," says Alice, "I know you said you have a nightgown on under all that, but can I please, please, _please_ loan you some pyjamas? I have more than enough, and I never even wear them!"

"Okay," says Nary, yawning again. "Sure."

She follows Alice upstairs to a big bedroom with an even bigger closet, and then submits to having Alice dress her in a succession of bias-cut silk nightgowns and chiffon negligees for a quarter of an hour. Then Esme shows up to take her to the spare bedroom, which (from what she can see passing through the house) is the only room that has an actual _bed_ in it. Esme tucks her under the thick blankets and smoothes her hair away from her face. It feels nice. Like being a little girl again. The room smells a little bit like Jake, and Nary wonders if they keep it just for him.

"We are so glad you've come back to us," says Esme quietly.

"I don't think I'm going to be what you hoped for," Nary mumbles, already half-asleep.

She barely hears Esme's response, "Whatever you are is what we hoped for," before drifting off into dream.

* * *

**Boy oh boy. Thanks for reading and for your wonderful reviews!**


	11. Vision

At first, Nary's dreams are harmless. Nothing memorable at all.

But soon they turn dark, very like the ones she had in the East Tower but with one difference: now, instead of only Jake, Demetri is present. In one dream, she is riding through the forest on Jake's back, and Demetri runs alongside them, saying nothing. In another, a red wolf takes her gently in its jaws and carries her away; it is only when she wriggles free that she realizes she has transformed into a wolf-cub as white as snow. Then Demetri appears and picks her up, cradles her in his arms and hums ancient songs to her until a shadowy figure appears. She can't see the figure, but she can tell by the abject terror he inspires in her that it's Aro. He snatches her from Demetri and breaks Demetri's neck in one smooth motion. The image jolts her awake.

She waits dumbly for Corin's power to kick in, and only realizes after a second or two that she is free. She can hyperventilate and panic all she wants, now. There is no one to take that away from her. The thought is so comforting that she calms down almost at once.

She sits up and looks out the window. It appears to be about noon; she can tell by the way the scant sunlight is hitting the conifers that march right up to the house.

There is a low, rhythmic rumbling coming from beside the bed. Nary leans over and sees Jake curled up on the floor, his head pillowed on his arm, still in his street clothes. His mouth is open a little and his eyelids are fluttering in REM. She has never seen him so exposed before—well, not that she can remember, anyway. There is something endearing about the sight of so massive a man curled up on the rug like a puppy. Nary sighs a little, leaning her chin on her arm.

At the sound, Jake's eyes pop open and he snaps upright. "Morning, Nary," he says in a sticky voice. "Sleep okay?"

"Yeah, I..." she begins, and then pauses. If all goes well, this is to be her new life, here with her family. Why not tell the truth?

"I had nightmares," she admits, shrugging. "I had them almost every night, before. They'll go away, in time."

Jake springs to his feet and sits on the bed next to Nary. He takes her small hand in his large one. "We'll keep you safe," he says. "I promise. They will never take you back. We won't let them."

This all feels like too much, especially after such a rough night, and so Nary climbs out of bed and into a robe. "I feel like breakfast," she says, attempting to adopt a light breeziness. She goes downstairs to find her whole family assembled again. She drifts restlessly to her grandmother. Esme has a sort of basic comfortableness that helps Nary feel less out-of-place.

"Did I hear you say you wanted breakfast?" says the older woman. Nary nods. "Well, we can go out hunting if you like, or you can have something from the kitchen. The other hybrid tells us that your kind can survive as easily on human food as on blood."

Will wonders never cease? "There's another hybrid?" asks Nary in shock. "Who is it?"

"A young man named Nahuel," says Carlisle. "He has lived off the radar for over a hundred years, but he was willing to travel to America when he heard of our troubles. You will meet him soon, I hope."

"So...I could have been eating human food all this time?" Nary asks, dumbfounded. It never even occurred to her to try it. She likes the way it smells, usually. She remembers being curious about it when Demetri would cook breakfast for the women he brought to their house in London. But of course, the women were her breakfast; why mess with a good thing?

"If you would like, I can prepare something," says Esme. "You can give it a try, and if you don't want to eat it we can hunt, or send the boys out again. I have a leg of lamb in the oven for Jacob already. Would you like some of that?"

Well, it's a new life; why not try a new diet? "Okay," says Nary. "Sure."

* * *

Eating cooked meat is _weird weird weird_. Nary has practically never used her teeth before for anything other than biting through necks. She chews the insides of her cheeks sometimes, bites her lips when she's thinking about something, and that's all. Her molars are still in their packaging.

"This is, ah..." she says, looking up. It actually tastes pretty good. Nothing at all like blood, although she can taste a hint of that salty sweetness in the center of her portion of meat, where the heat of the oven didn't penetrate as much. It tastes smoky and savory, and there is a pleasant tingle of mint that reminds her of the only non-blood consumable she's ever put in her mouth, which is toothpaste. "It's good," she finishes.

Esme's shoulders relax and she smiles happily. "I'm glad you like it," she says. "Here, we have more. Why don't you just pick at whatever you want? I know this is new for you, so don't feel you have to eat it just to be polite. You can still have blood, if you want." Then she sets platters full of food on the table. Jake comes down after a moment and laughs with pleasure at the spread.

"Awesome," he enthuses. "Lamb! This is great, Esme! You like it, Nary?" Nary nods up at him.

There is a platter right in the middle of the table that is emitting a nasty-good smell. It's cheese, Nary knows, and it smells pungent and full of exciting veins of mold. Shyly she reaches out and plucks a little chunk of a hard, crumbly cheese from the platter. She sniffs it experimentally. It smells even weirder up close, kind of like feet or something. She touches it to her tongue. Her eyes grow wide.

Three minutes later, to widespread amusement, every crumb of cheese has vanished down Nary's gullet.

The human food fills up her stomach just as well as blood does. Better, actually; it gives her a heavy, full sort of feeling that she never gets from animal _or_ human blood. It's strange and unusual, but not precisely unpleasant. And her appetite is certainly sated. Jake takes longer than her, but soon everyone is gathered in the living room to talk.

"So, have you met Charlie yet?" asks Alice, balancing her heavy armchair on its two back legs.

"Charlie?" repeats Nary.

"We didn't get to Charlie yet," says Jake.

"Oh, okay," says Emmett. "Well, he's a cool dude. You'll like him."

"Who's Charlie?" asks Nary.

"Charlie's your grandpa," says Jake. "Your mom's dad. He's um, he's a human. How are you around humans?"

Nary flushes, because she knows that Jake knows she's eaten her share of _Homo sapiens sapiens_. "I'm fine," she says. "I don't get vampire bloodlust. I drank blood because it tasted good, but I mean, so does cheese, and I'm not about to go cheese-crazy."

"Are you sure about that?" says Emmett, winking. Nary smiles.

"Charlie doesn't know you're here," says Carlisle. "We didn't want to tell him until you were ready."

"Well," says Nary, "I mean, I guess...do you think he wants to meet me?"

"Uh, you think?" says Emmett. "Nary, in case you haven't noticed, _everyone_ wants to meet you." She smiles again. She's really warming up to her uncle. And her grandmother is really great. Alice is kind of overwhelming, but she's dialed it back since that first night. Everyone here seems...well, they all seem pretty normal, actually. Even weird uncle Jasper. They all move and talk a little bit like her.

"I'd like to meet him," she says.

So that is what they do. Esme makes a phone call, and Nary can hear the whole thing. Charlie—her grandpa—has sort of a rough, low voice, and he sounds first disbelieving and then astonished and then he gets very, very quiet. Then they all pile into a variety of cars—no one is willing to be left behind, and Nary feels more comfortable with lots of people around anyway—and drive about twenty minutes till they reach an unassuming house on an unassuming street. Nary rides with Esme, Carlisle and Jake. She spends the whole ride fiddling with the hem of the silky blouse Alice dressed her in, fretting, but already she feels more optimistic. Breakfast'll do that.

Charlie doesn't wait for them to knock. He is already standing on the front porch by the time they pull in, caravan-style, to his driveway. Jake gets out first and holds the door for Nary. She looks up at her grandfather, searching his face for any resemblance, but all she can see is that she inherited his rather sticky-outy ears and his very, very curly hair. She has his eyes, too, big and brown, though his are surrounded by a maze of laugh-lines and worry-lines.

"So you're Nary," he says gruffly as she walks up the steps. "Well, little lady, I'm your grandpa. It's a real goddamn pleasure to meet you." And then he hugs her awkwardly with one arm. She can smell his blood through the skin, and it even smells kind of like hers. And then she hugs him back, and he is squishy and human and so _ephemeral_, and he won't _last_, just like her mother didn't last. His daughter. His little girl, his dead baby girl, the girl who lived just long enough to bring Nary into this world and left it immediately after...

And then Nary can't hold any more of this, because she is thinking of the baby she _didn't_ bring into the world, and how can anything ever last when every shadow conceals a vulture? She can't hold this all in and it comes flooding out in the form of burning hot tears and heavy sobs. Charlie is crying too, she can feel his whole body stiffening against the same relentless ugly sobs.

It hits her, as it didn't with the Cullens, that this man is _family_. He is her grandfather. Fully one quarter of her DNA is from him. All this time that she never even knew he existed, he was in deep mourning for his baby girl. For the first time since this nightmare began, Nary is more sorry for someone else than for herself. She wants to make him feel better. Without thinking, without breaking their embrace, she rests her hand against the nape of his neck and thinks, _We're together now, Charlie. Everything will be okay._

He jumps back. Red-rimmed eyes stare at her in bewilderment. "Did you just..." he says. "Wait, _what?_"

Nary stands on the porch feeling stupid, knowing all the Cullens are watching her. Right, well, of course he doesn't know about that. Even _vampires_ are usually surprised by her power.

"I can, um," she says. "Sort of, like...talk. Without talking."

"I noticed," says Charlie drily. "I think I'd better sit down." He turns to the front door and holds it open, then looks at Nary expectantly. "You come on in, uh...what do I call you?"

"Nary," says Nary.

"Shoot," says Charlie, a sly smile starting on his face. "That name ain't nothin'."

And then Nary laughs shakily, because she can see that Charlie gets it, and follows her grandfather indoors.

* * *

"I'm afraid you will not know the comfort of home for a while, Demetri," says Aro through the phone. "But then, what is home when the one you love is gone?" Demetri takes a deep breath and tries not to be afraid of Aro's tone, which has only become more alarming with every call. Demetri is about three-quarters sure that Aro isn't angry at _him_, specifically, which leaves one-quarter to be paranoid all the time. "And when you have completed your final task," continues Aro, "return to Volterra. We will form a delegation."

"Yes, milord," says Demetri. Then, because he cannot help himself: "A delegation to where?"

"We are long overdue for a visit to our Olympian friends," answers Aro.

* * *

Jake is scarfing down braised venison as fast as he can. They spent the afternoon with Charlie, and then Charlie came back to the Cullen place with them for dinner. In the context of the quietness of Charlie Swan, the quietness of Nary suddenly makes a lot more sense. They spent a lot of time sitting quietly together after supper, and they looked just like a _family_.

Now Charlie has gone home and Nary has gone to bed, but Charlie has mentioned that he has a spare room that is all hers if she wants it, and Jake can tell that Nary won't be staying here much longer. She and Charlie suit each other.

Jake finishes his huge pile of venison and starts in on some sort of savory meat pie which tastes creamy and salty and weird, but good.

"She was asking for you in her sleep," says Esme, sitting beside him. "Well, sort of. I brushed her hand as I was tucking her in, and she was thinking of you. Just as she used to. She thought of Charlie, too." She smiles at the thought. Jake eats faster, so fast he can feel his stomach rebelling. He doesn't want another minute to pass before he goes upstairs to hunker on the floor beside Nary's bed. He doesn't feel right when she is out of his sight; hopefully that uneasiness will go away eventually, when they have gotten used to her being home and all the loose ends are tied up. But for now he is convinced that every minute she is out of sight, something terrible is happening to her, something he is failing to protect her from. Call it a phobia.

Jake is just about done when he hears a gasp, followed instantly by the shattering of glass. He is on his feet before he's yet located the source of the sound: Alice, busy near the mantle, has just dropped a crystal vase. Before the water from the vase has even found its level, she is shaking her head and wringing her hands. Jasper is at her side at once, his hands on her shoulders.

"What is it?" he asks. "What did you see?"

"It's them," she whispers. "The Volturi. They're coming for us. They want a bloodbath, they want _her_. And they are not planning to leave without Jasper and me. They intend to sacrifice you all for the three of us."

"When?" asks Carlisle urgently. "When does this happen?"

"I don't know," she answers, screwing her eyes shut to review the vision. "I saw them in the big clearing in the woods, where we used to play baseball. There was snow on the ground; it was just barely beginning to stick."

"Which ones are coming?" asks Carlisle.

"All of them," answers Alice desolately. "The three, the Guard, lots that I don't even recognize. Even the wives and Corin will be there. They're bringing _everyone_."

"It's already October," says Emmett. "It could snow any day."

Alice shakes her head. "It will be January," she says. "I'm almost positive. The sun is out, and from the angle I think it will be the new year. I'm almost positive."

"So we have a little less than three months to plan," says Jake.

"Plan what?" asks Alice hopelessly. "There are so many, and they have such powers..."

"_We_ have so many," says Jake fiercely. "_We_ have powers." He can feel the tension that precedes a phase building up in his chest, and he tries to redirect it into something useful. "We knew this was coming. This is exactly what we've planned for, better in some ways because it's on our home turf. We have some that have promised to stand by us. And with Nary here, we'll have way more information on the Volturi than they have on us. She's lived with them for a long time. She _knows_ them." It stings his insides to even think of her that way, but it will be useful. It might be the only leg up they get, if this should come to blows. Which it will; Jake will see to that even if no one else does.

"She knows the murderer," says Esme. "The woman Yejide. The Volturi have been harboring her. Their moral high ground is rife with potholes."

"They won't take her," growls Jake.

"They certainly won't," agrees Esme, just as determinedly. "But we will have to plan. It will be even harder now to convince some of our visitors to stay. We will need to find more, as well. We will need to look harder."

"I'll keep watching them," says Alice. "Aro is planning for a fight. Maybe if I can figure out what tactics he's planning to use..."

"Jacob, can you talk to the wolves again?" asks Esme. "They need to know this. It is such a short time, but perhaps they can prepare—"

"Yes," says Jake. "In the morning. I'll talk to the elders then."

* * *

Demetri is in hell.

Actually, he's in Tunisia, sweeping through the northeastern chunk of Africa and rounding up vampires to send back to Aro.

But for all practical purposes, he's in hell.

It is time to face reality. Ever since Aro told him they would keep Nary, he convinced himself that this was what would be best for her. He still doesn't know what would have been best. He can justify his actions till he's blue in the face: they were on Aro's orders, and Aro was acting on his own judgment without reference to Demetri. He would never go against a direct order from Aro. Not even now can he shake the deep and abiding loyalty he has for his master. He would do anything to spare Aro from harm. And none of that is his fault; Chelsea has stripped him of all responsibility for his allegiance.

All of these things are provably, literally true. So why don't they feel like good enough reasons anymore?

Nary has absconded and there is no longer any point in deceiving himself. Whatever he may say to make himself feel better, doing wrong under orders is still _wrong_. He did wrong to Nary. He was weak, and she deserves so much better than weakness.

And now there are decisions to be made. Demetri's feet flash across the Tunisian wilderness, tracking a vampire with a newborn who will answer Aro's call, but his mind is far away, cranking out thoughts he is almost too afraid to think.

Aro decided to keep Nary, and it was done. Aro decided to have her raised as Ward of the Volturi, and it was done. Aro decided to lie baldly to her face when she asked him about her family. He decided to lock her in the East Tower. And now Aro's decision is to wage war on the Cullens, to wipe them from the face of the earth and claim what is his. Demetri has never questioned his master and this is hardly the time to start.

And yet...

_What gives Aro the right?_

The thought is terrible enough that Demetri skids to a sudden stop, digging deep grooves into the dusty ground. This is the first time he has had this thought since he was a stripling vampire, son of the ancients Amun and Kebi. Although he feels very little toward his sire at the moment, he can well remember that he once held Amun in the highest regard. His sire was good to him. He was valued, in that small coven. Kebi loved him as much as any mother could love her son. And although Amun was not particularly fatherly, there was affection and mutual respect on all sides.

So why did he leave? Is his life in the Volturi really so much better than his life with his sire and his adopted mother? His adoration for Aro verges on god-worship, but he is not stupid enough to believe that Aro loves or respects him in return. Certainly not the way Amun did. No, Aro uses him, and that is all.

In the beginning, he resisted Aro's overtures. This was seven, perhaps eight centuries ago, but of course he remembers it all perfectly. Aro visited the Egyptian coven on what he claimed was a mission of diplomacy. He sought time alone with Demetri, invited him to visit Volterra. Amun was enraged by the offer, and so Demetri ignored the invitations, and Aro left peaceably.

But then Aro returned to Egypt, this time with Chelsea, and nothing was ever the same again. Demetri felt his loyalty toward his sire drifting away from him. He felt his affection for his mother evaporating like mist. Suddenly Aro seemed the very model of an ideal leader. And Aro wanted _him_.

Flattered and besotted, Demetri followed Aro without a look back. He has given the Volturi the better part of his immortality, and what have they given him in return? In nearly eight hundred years Demetri has never once felt any sort of job security working for Aro. He has never felt that he belonged to a real family—as he did with Amun and Kebi—or even that he belonged to an egalitarian coven which he could leave at will.

No, he is more like a slave—high-ranking and privileged, perhaps, but a slave nonetheless. One who will be murdered if he ever displeases his master, or if a better tracker comes along, or if he happens to say the wrong thing when Aro is in a foul mood. What the hell kind of a life is that?

He has no free will. Aro has access to his every thought, so even his mind is heavily policed. Marcus always knows exactly how he's feeling toward the coven; with her power Chelsea reinforces his loyalty. It is impossible to defend himself against Marcus and Chelsea, working together.

Nary figured all of this out. She is smarter than him, or perhaps she is just a better person. No, scratch that; Demetri _knows_ she is a better person. And somehow she pieced it all together and figured out a way to escape the system. It isn't as if it's so hard to understand what goes on in the Volturi coven; Chelsea's powers are hardly a secret. But it's difficult to _care_.

And Nary found a way. Something about her is special. It could be the human half of her, or it could be the link she shares with the American shape-shifter. Maybe she just has a truer moral compass than the rest of the Volturi. But she saw right through Aro, and Aro knew it. She was paranoid toward the end. She was paranoid even before she lost the baby. There were little signs everywhere. She was terrified of Aro, and Demetri never even asked _why_. So what if he had? Even if she'd been able to tell him, he would never have understood. Not till now.

Aro is not the beneficent father of a well-regulated family, as he would have the world believe. He is a tyrant who takes whatever he wants and destroys all that stands in his way. Right now, he is planning an assault on a coven that has done nothing to offend him. Even at this moment Aro must be spinning lies to excuse this inexcusable act of aggression.

Demetri sorts through what he knows.

Nary hates and mistrusts Aro. When her mistrust became too much of a threat, Aro bolted her away under psychological lock and key. When Nary finally escaped, she fled to the only people she _could _trust.

Now Aro wishes to murder those people in cold blood, sparing only those whom he can use. Demetri knows already who will be let to live: The psychic; her mate, the one who manipulates emotions; and Nary. There are others on the Olympic Peninsula, as well, and if they are still there when the Volturi arrive, they will be massacred unless they join in the spree against the Cullens. Aro will succeed because he has Jane and Alec and Demetri, but above all he will succeed because he has Chelsea. Very little can withstand her power.

There is one more thing that Demetri knows:

He loves Nary. He has always loved her. He will always love her. Until now, his love for her has not come into conflict with his loyalty to Aro. But now he has a choice to make.

He could simply do nothing to rock the boat. Aro will prevail, the status quo will be upheld, and Nary will return to the East Tower, where Demetri will be assured of seeing her often, forever. This is the surest choice, the most likely to succeed. If he makes this choice, in time he will be content. If Aro never lets her out of the East Tower, then Demetri will simply visit her often enough to become like her, lazy and content. Nary wouldn't care, not once she was up there. Demetri would come out of it without a single loss.

But it is not what Nary wants. Nary wants to be safe from Aro. She wants her freedom. Who is Demetri to deny the woman he loves the one thing she most ardently desires? No one loved Demetri enough to consult his own wishes eight hundred years ago. Does he love Nary enough to consult hers, even if it should cost him his own freedom, his own life? If it should cost him _her?_

He knows logically that Aro is very much in the wrong, that Nary is in danger because of Aro's limitless greed. None of that has any effect on his adoration of his master. He would still put his body between Aro and danger. He would still gladly die for the ancient; he would still be honored by every word Aro addressed to him, even if that word were an order to track down and kill Nary's whole family. Aro is his lord and master, his patriarch, his god. That can't be changed.

Demetri uproots a tree and hurls it angrily at the Tunisian sunset. He has no answers.

* * *

**Thanks for reading, let me know what you think!**


	12. Too Many Cooks In The Kitchen

"Alice? What is it?"

Nary looks up to find her whole family staring at her aunt, who has an oddly vacant look on her face. She touches Jake's forearm and thinks, _Is she getting a vision? Like last night?_

Jake nods. He bends down to whisper, "She always looks like she's constipated when she has a vision. Don't worry, she'll pass this one soon enough."

"I heard that, mutt," snaps Alice, whose vision apparently ended as soon as it began. Jake straightens up and winks at Nary, who smiles down at her hands.

"What is it, dear?" asks Esme.

"I'm not sure," admits Alice. "It had to do with..." she shoots Nary an anxious glance and pauses, and Nary is suddenly flooded with foreboding. It's Demetri, it must be Demetri. Aro is planning to have him killed, in his anger at Nary. Or he will be imprisoned in the East Tower to await his wife's return. Or Chelsea and Aro are working on him to make him forget everything that ever made him _good_—

"It's the tracker," says Alice in a tiny voice. Nary slumps, covering her face with her hands.

"What about him?" asks Carlisle.

"I can't tell," says Alice. "He's vacillating between a few wildly different courses, but he hasn't made up his mind yet..."

"Is he safe?" asks Nary suddenly, unable to keep it in any longer.

"My power doesn't show me things like that—" begins Alice, but Nary interrupts.

"Is Aro planning to have him killed?" she asks. "What's going to happen to him?"

"This vision wasn't about Aro, not specifically," says Alice. "Or the tracker, although I think he has something to do with it. I just saw two quick flashes, no more than still pictures. They're...they're not very good for us. I think the tracker is going to do something unpredictable, but I can't see _what_ the thing is or if he'll decide to do it at all..."

"Demetri," says Nary tensely. "His name is Demetri. Please call him that. _Please_."

Her family blinks at her in unison. Nary looks away. How can she make them understand? They think of Demetri as her kidnapper, and they are right. They think of him as Aro's pawn, and they are right about that, too.

"It's just..." she says softly, "Aro always called him that. _Tracker_. Like he's not a person, he's just a skill to be used. And I know you all hate him. I don't blame you. I hate him, too. Almost as much as I love him."

"After what he did to you—" begins Rosalie.

"I know, I know," says Nary impatiently. "But you don't understand what Aro is like. And besides, Demetri is...he's _family_." She almost says, _the only family I've got_, but stops herself in time.

"_We're_ your family," says Carlisle. "Nary, I know how hard this must be for you, but Demetri is with _them_. You must keep that in mind."

"As if there were any hope of forgetting it," she mutters. Then, louder, she says, "Listen. I get all that. I'm not saying I want to invite him over for brunch, but I don't want him dead, either."

"Nary—" says Carlisle, but his wife lays a restraining hand on his arm.

"Remember, Cary," she says quietly, "he is her husband. You can hardly expect her to hope for his downfall."

"Of course," says Carlisle, breathing deeply. "Nor do I. I apologize, Nary, if I gave you that impression. I truly am sorry. I always liked Demetri very much, and I've always felt it was a shame for him to be so tightly locked into Aro's ways. I only wished to insert a little perspective. But I suppose it is not my place to tell you how to feel. Forgive me."

"Yes, of course," says Nary, flustered. "I—there's nothing to forgive. I didn't mean to derail the conversation like that. It is I who should apologize."

"Well, if we're all done apologizing," says Emmett brightly, "can we get a move on? I told Eleazar we'd be there in half an hour and we haven't even started yet."

* * *

Jake has promised to stay by Nary's side, and so that is what he is doing. Not that a promise was required; he has barely left her alone since she appeared in his living room out of the blue. But he can tell that she is nervous, although she's hiding it well. This is all so much for her. She is so goddamn _brave_.

"Ready?" he asks her. She turns a shade whiter and nods. Esme puts a reassuring arm around Nary's shoulders.

"You'll be fine, darling," she says. "And if you need to take a break, have some space, that's fine. I know this is a lot for you."

"I'll be fine," says Nary, straightening up. "My initiation was a lot scarier than this." Through the hand she has clasped in his, Jake catches a sudden vision of a feeding frenzy in a big stone room, an old man cringing in a corner in evening clothes. The image give him a cold flash.

The other Cullens and Leah enter the giant first-floor reception room ahead of Nary and Jake.

"Everyone," Jake hears Esme say to the listening crowd, "We have a story to tell."

"Who's out there?" asks a leech. "Something smells different."

"It's her, isn't it?" asks Nahuel excitedly. Of course Nahuel would figure it out immediately. Nary looks questioningly up at Jake.

"That's the other hybrid," he says. "He's cool, you'll like him." He barely has time to register the nervousness on Nary's face before the door is opening again to let them in.

"God in heaven," whispers Kate. Everyone is stone-still, staring at Nary, who seems to shrink in on herself.

"Um," she squeaks. "Hi?"

And then everyone is talking at once, firing questions and exclamations around the room at top speed. The whole downstairs of this house is one big room, and it is echoing like a church with the noise this rabble is making. To their credit, none of them attempt to swarm the new arrival.

"If we could have quiet," says Carlisle, holding up his hands. The noise dies down.

"I know you all probably have a lot of questions about this," says Esme loudly. "And we will answer them all in time. I know that when you have heard all I have to say, you will understand the need to give Nary some space. Nary," she says, turning to her granddaughter, "is it alright if I tell them everything you've told us?" Nary nods mutely.

"A few nights ago Jacob returned to his home to find that Nary had made her way there from Volterra. Aro had been keeping her locked up in the East Tower—" there are some gasps at this "—and her escape was both wildly improbable and impossibly courageous. As I'm sure most of you know, the East Tower of Volterra is the safeguard of the two Wives; it is a fortress of the mind, where the vampire Corin keeps Aro's prisoners too content to want to leave. This is where they banished Nary some months ago; it is why she stopped writing the letters which we have paraphrased for you."

Jake feels Nary twitch at this. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "I had to show them to your family, and we had to at least tell the others what was in them or they would never agree to help."

"One quirk of Corin's power is that is does not work on one who is asleep. This is immaterial as concerns her usual, unsleeping prisoners. But Nary, as a half-human, was able to steal her own emotions back in the night, and keep them for a few moments upon waking before Corin brought her once more under control.

"A few days ago, Corin was too slow in reclaiming her prisoner, and Nary managed to jump out of a window undetected. She fled Volterra on foot, stole some clothes and a motorcycle, pawned her jewelry and bought a plane ticket to SeaTac. Although she did not, at the time, know that her family was working toward her release, she trusted that Jacob would give her sanctuary. She went straight to La Push. Is this alright so far, Nary?"

Nary nods again.

"Jacob called us to let us know she had escaped, which is why we had to leave you in such a hurry the other day. Please excuse us for our failure to explain our hasty departure. I can say only that we were too painfully eager to meet our girl to bother with manners. Maggie, have you anything to say to the story thus far?"

Maggie shakes her head. "Everything you're saying is true," she says. "But—and please don't be offended—I am going to need to hear it from her, too." She turns to Nary. "Hello," she says pleasantly. "I'm Maggie. I have the gift of knowing when I am being lied to. Can you affirm all that Esme has just told us?"

"It's true," says Nary hoarsely. Then, louder, "It's all true. I escaped from them. I had no idea you were all here. I hope you will help us. Oh god, I hope you will help us. I don't know how we can defeat them otherwise."

"Defeat them?" says Amun suspiciously. "But you have the girl back. There is no need for a rescue mission. What more is there to do?"

"They are coming for her," says Alice, and once again the room erupts in urgent whispers. "Please, everyone, please, just...this doesn't necessarily change anything. In some ways it is _better_ like this. My visions are getting clearer. Not by much, but I'm sure I will know more very soon."

"What do you know now?" demands Amun.

"Aro wants Nary back," says Alice. "He is deeply insulted; his pride was wounded by her defection. He hopes also to bring Jasper and me back to Volterra. Jasper and I will join his Guard, and Nary will be returned to the East Tower under even heavier guard; this is what will certainly happen, if we do not resist them."

"Why would we resist them?" sneers Alistair. "You've said yourself it is a lost cause."

"She said no such thing," bursts out Nary suddenly. The room goes quiet. Nary's hands are balled up into fists and her face is very white.

"You don't know what it's like there," she says passionately. "It's worth dying if it means I don't go back. I know I can't expect you to lay down your lives for some half-breed you've only just met. I can't ask any of you for that, and I won't. But you should know something about Aro. He considers himself far above the laws that he inflicts on everyone else. He has done terrible things, things for which any other vampire would be punished most brutally. And he does them with impunity. There is no one to stop him, but he _must_ be stopped."

"He has borne false witness," says Carlisle. "He witnessed that Nary was dead; when he found her alive, he said nothing. Imagine the punishment if one of _you _had done the same to _him_."

"I hardly think that will stick to him," says Eleazar regretfully. "He's squirmed out of similar situations in the past. He has an oily tongue."

"There's more," says Nary. "There's so much more. When I was in the East Tower, Sulpicia and Athenodora became my friends. In time, they trusted me enough to introduce me to the others who live in the East Tower. There are two women there whose minds did not develop properly in life. I am not sure why Aro turned them, but I know what he used at least one of them for. Yejide was sent to kill my parents."

"Yejide could not be detected by Edward's power because she had no thoughts to read," says Carlisle. "She is an empty vessel, but her strength, it seems, was real. We still do not know _why_ Aro wanted Edward and Bella dead, but at least we now know _how_."

"How do you know it was her?" asks Maggie, scrutinizing Nary closely.

"I saw it all happen when I was a baby," she answers. "I've had dreams about it ever since. My memory may not be as perfect as a full vampire's, but it is good enough. I saw my mother fighting a woman; I saw her tear off the woman's arm and throw it on a fire, I saw her tear off the woman's head and dump the body into the ocean. Yejide has a scar around her throat. She is missing her right arm. it is gone, completely gone. And even if she were whole, I would recognize her. I would know her face."

"Checks out," says Maggie, shrugging.

"This is all well and good," says Amun, "but Aro will simply claim he had no prior knowledge of Yejide's actions. This will be easy for him to deny."

"He won't fool me," says Maggie. "Let him stand trial before me, and I will—"

"There's more," interrupts Nary suddenly. "They have an immortal child."

This time, the noise that explodes through the room cannot be quelled. Irina and Tanya begin gesticulating wildly, shouting at each other in Russian. Kate sprints to the front of the room, skidding to a stop inches from Nary.

"Step off, Kate," says Jake warningly, but Kate ignores him.

"They have an immortal child?" she asks. Her accent is unusually heavy; she is clearly agitated.

"Yes," says Nary. "They got him for the wives. He has lived in the East Tower for hundreds of years."

"This is it!" Kate shouts over the crowd, turning to them. "They murdered my mother, claiming punishment for breaking their law against the creation of immortal children. Amun, you sneaky son of a bitch, if you try to weasel out of this I will hunt you down and electrocute you forever. They have broken their own laws. This is no longer a rescue mission, my friends. This is _retribution_."

"How is it our business?" whines Amun. Kebi plucks at his sleeve nervously.

Nary squeezes Jake's hand and he hears her voice in his head: _Is that Amun, like, the ancient Amun? The Egyptian?_

"Yeah," says Jake. "Pretty freaky, huh?"

"Amun," says Nary in a loud, clear voice. The room quiets again. Jake is beginning to notice that everyone tends to shut up when Nary talks. She really is amazing. She can even charm this mob.

"What is it?" asks Amun ungraciously.

"Your coven used to hold another, did it not?"

"What of it?" snips Amun. Jake feels a tiny smile plucking at his lips. Every third sentence out of Amun's mouth is some complaint against the Volturi for poaching the tracker from his coven ages ago. He bitches about it _constantly_. It is not common knowledge that Nary is married to Demetri, but Amun will no doubt find the news...interesting.

"The tracker Demetri. Do you miss him?"

"I _sired_ him!" shouts Amun. "Do I miss—_do I miss—_the insolence!"

"I would think you'd do anything to get him back," says Nary.

"Yes, and lose the rest of my coven in the attempt?" sneers Amun. "I have not survived three and a half thousand years only to die now, on some fools' mission to get my son back. He made his choice."

"_Chelsea_ made that choice," says Nary. "And Aro made it for her. Demetri did not choose to join the Volturi. He left you only because Chelsea weakened his attachment to you and strengthened his loyalty to Aro. Very few of the Guard are there of their own free will. Most were coerced, or worse. Demetri has told me of you, Amun. And you as well, Kebi. He drew your pictures for me, so that I would know the faces of my in-laws."

For once, Amun is the only silent one in the room. Now he is staring hard at Nary, like he can't quite understand what she just told him.

Nary drops some of the tension from her shoulders and squeezes Jake's hand again. _I'm going to get him away from those bastards if I possibly can,_ she thinks. _He helped me get away, you know, telling me about my family. Even if he didn't know it at the time. _Jake feels like he's been dunked in an ice bath. The last fucking thing he wants is for Demetri to miraculously defect from the Volturi, because then he won't be able to tear the little fucker's head off and crunch it between his teeth. That asshole has a serious shitload of vengeance coming his way.

"...In-laws?" Amun repeats uncertainly.

"Yes," says Nary. "He doesn't talk about you much, because Chelsea has him tied to Aro's apron-strings. Just like she has Felix and Heidi and all the others. None of them wanted to leave their first covens. The only ones who really want to be there—deep down, I mean, _subliminally _want to be there—are Alec and Jane. The rest are just...under a spell."

"We already knew this about Chelsea," says Carlisle. "She is the very reason we are so uncertain of victory."

"But there is hope," Nary is saying. "Chelsea stays because she is dependent on Corin's power. It is highly addictive; after so long an exposure, I think if Chelsea were to leave she would be utterly incapacitated. It might even kill her, or drive her mad; who knows?"

"What good does that do us?" asks Maggie.

"Don't you see?" says Nary. "Chelsea is the lynchpin of Aro's power, right? Everyone's always saying that. But Chelsea is nothing without Corin. And Corin only stays for the wives."

"Why is that a good thing?" asks Rosalie in confusion.

"Corin doesn't owe Aro anything!" says Nary. "Corin doesn't even consider herself a Voltura. She lives for Sulpicia and Athenodora, and for the others in the East Tower. I don't think Aro realizes just how much she dislikes him and Caius; how would he? Marcus is his only source of information on such matters, and Marcus avoids Corin like the plague. Aro doesn't even bother to read her thoughts anymore; he thinks her life is too boring to bother with. Aro and Caius just upset the order of things in the East Tower. If Corin had her way, she would just live with the wives and to hell with the three ancients."

"Is this true, Eleazar?" asks Carlisle.

Eleazar shrugs. "I didn't see any of that when I lived there. I was never in the East Tower."

"I'm _telling _you," insists Nary. "The best possible thing that could happen is for Aro to bring Corin and the wives. He doesn't realize it, but Corin is the chink in his armor, a weakness directly over his heart."

"And he will bring them," says Alice. "He decided that right away. He plans to use Corin to get Nary back under control before she can make a scene."

"Well, what's to prevent him doing just that?" asks Vladimir.

"Jasper?" says Esme.

"According to Nary here," says Jasper, "Corin's power extends about fifty feet in every direction. My power can reach about seventy. I haven't tried this before, but I do believe I can offset her. Her power acts as a powerful shield; in fact, although anyone in the Guard would die to protect the Wives, Corin is really all the bodyguard they need. If anyone can get close to Corin, it will probably have to be me." Nary looks uncomfortable at this; although they've discussed it briefly, she clearly does not like the idea of Corin or either of the wives being targeted personally. But there is nothing else to be done. No matter how this ends, good people will die.

* * *

**Thanks for reading!**


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